ABSTRACT
The scientific literature demonstrates that food and dietary choices can impact the environment in many ways, such as climate change, soil, water and energy use, and biodiversity loss. People’s food behaviours are influenced by the design of the products, systems, tools, and services they use, and design could intentionally be used to influence behaviour to bring about sustainable practices. In the past few years, recognising these interrelations has led to a significant growth of design methods in the agri-food sector. Three projects on the Mediterranean Diet made by food designers are presented here to understand what effects those concrete applications have on shifting the perception about how food can be consumed. How is it possible to change the food-related decisions that consumers make on a daily basis? Is changing the way people think about food by designing new products and tools possible? This chapter ends by identifying the role of design and designers working on food behaviour change to transition to sustainable diets. Design methods can enable sustainable behaviours through understanding human drivers, values, and everyday needs and looking at them not as problems but as opportunities for forging suitable designs.
