Meeting sustainability targets in Copenhagen by shifting urban diets
City: Copenhagen, Denmark
Year: 2019 — 2021
Status: Completed
Local partners: City of Copenhagen, EAT Foundation, World Resources Institute, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, University of Copenhagen, and City University of London
According to the EAT-Lancet Commission, the average planetary meal should consist by volume of approximately half a plate of vegetables and fruits; the other half, displayed in this illustration by contribution to calories, should consist of primarily whole grains, plant protein sources, unsaturated plant oils, and (optionally) modest amounts of animal sources of protein.
Illustration by the EAT. Click to enlarge.
Can a physical space shift a young person’s diet to promote climate sustainability? How does price, place, and habit dictate what young people eat and where? These questions were explored through a multi-year initiative in two Copenhagen neighbourhoods, which included a Foodscapes Assessment, pilot project interventions designed to shift eating behaviours, and impact assessment to synthesise lessons for other cities. The project developed new methods to measure youths relationship with public space and food, and successfully started a conversation on how to shift youth eating habits to a planetary diet and reduce Copenhagen's food related carbon emissions.
The Challenge
Shifting youth diets to promote climate sustainability
In Copenhagen’s efforts to reach climate neutrality by 2025, attention has increasingly been put on the city’s food system. Copenhagen aims to be a world-leading green and liveable city with easily accessible, healthy, and sustainable food, but like other cities, faces challenges to systematically address interrelated health and sustainability challenges. Copenhageners are currently consuming 1,4 tons CO2 over what the EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet prescribes.
The aim of this Foodscape Assessment was to identify how to shift local dietary behaviours using the urban environment, reduce Copenhagen's carbon footprint through sustainable food consumption, and operationalize the EAT Lancet Commission’s guide to a Planetary Health Diet.
Quick facts
Research and study context
Two neighbourhoods at the nexus of school, supermarket, and public space
Because the core goal of the project was to shift dietary behaviours, youth were identified as the key target, as the age group with the highest propensity to adopt change. In Copenhagen, 12 years old is the age when youth are allowed purchase lunch meals outside of school grounds. This is also a crucial life moment, where for the first time, they have access to their own money and autonomy. Beacuse of this, the team believed that teenagers could be nudged to adopt a Planetary Health Diet through interventions in the public realm. Armed with this hunch, the team developed a methodology to identify and assess the dietary and public life habits, choices, wishes, and needs of young people aged 12-17 years old in Copenhagen.
Gehl and the research team selected two case neighbourhoods: Nørrebro and Vesterbro. These areas were chosen because of their central urban location and density of public schools, supermarkets, and public spaces. While both neighbourhoods are centrally located within Copenhagen, they have different spatial typologies and demographic makeups. Comparing data from the two interventions ensured a better understanding of the factors and behaviours that are unique to each location, and how they can influence behavioural change over time.
The pilots were placed in the neighbourhoods of Vesterbro and Nørrebro, where schools are in close proximity to a supermarket and public space.
Click to enlarge.
Foodscape assessment
Research methodology
The team used a range of qualitative and quantitative methodologies to uncover insights into youth behaviours and habits around food in the public realm. Primary amongst these was co-visioning sessions together with teens to inform the design of inviting and accessible places for youth to enjoy and share a healthy meal with friends. During several co-design workshops with local 12-17 year olds, participants described how they experience their neighbourhoods, which public spaces they enjoy spending time in with their friends, and what factors determine if they want to stop and enjoy a meal in a place or not.
Other methods included:
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The Foodscape Survey identifies how people relate to their food environments. In this survey, people are observed moving and staying in the public realm where food is present. The survey makes a quantitative assessment of who is present, how they are behaving, if they are alone or with others, and what food related activities they are engaged in. This data provides a comprehensive understanding of how public life unfolds in relation to food on a day-to-day basis.
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The quality of public space is assessed using the Twelve Quality Criteria, a qualitative tool used to assess the quality of a public space based on three core themes:
— Protection: to what degree does the space feel safe?
— Comfort: are there opportunities for people to move around, sit and stay, see what's happening around them, and listen and talk?
— Enjoyment: is the space dimensioned at a human scale and enjoyable to the senses? -
The Food Place Survey is a spatial analysis of the current conditions of food places. Their opening hours, the items on sale, what kind of seating environment is provided and how food is visually represented toward the street. Insights from a Food Place Survey are best layered with the Foodscape Survey data to offer a hyper-local evidence basis on how food behaviours unfold in a given food environment.
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Using an intercept survey, researchers randomly select and approach people spending time in a neighbourhoods and ask questions about their experiences. Interviewees are selected randomly by counting every 5th person who passes. The foodscapes intercept survey used in this study provides insight on where people eat, what they feel is missing in their neighbourhoods, and why they choose to eat out, among other information. These surveys help to uncover public perceptions by answering two overarching questions: How does your neighbourhood influence your consumption of food? And how might your neighbourhood make it easier for you to choose healthier food options?
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In-depth focus groups with specific foodscape users provides self reported nuance to people’s foodscape perceptions and experiences. Focus groups create a shared understanding of how dietary behaviour patterns are related to people’s daily journeys, and the key challenges they face to access food.
Synthesis of key findings
Young people seek out food that is on sale or offered at a low price – and advertisers know this
Unsurprisingly, the team found that youth were attracted to cheap or discounted food that suited their budgets. Unfortunately, a survey of food spaces near schools revealed that inexpensive food was also often unhealthy and found in fast food shops or supermarkets. What's more, unhealthy food is generally advertised to target youth while healthier, fresh foods are rarely advertised for this demographic.
Teens want to have meals and socialise in public spaces, but the public realm is often not designed for them
Teens described how they spent a lot of time during their school breaks in nearby supermarkets to kill time and buy cheap (and unhealthy) food. Interviews and focus groups indicated that youth in both neighbourhoods wanted to eat meals with their friends in other public spaces in the city, presenting an opportunity to create a healthier food environment outside of supermarkets and fast food places. However, they sometimes didn't find places near their schools where they wanted to spend time.
Public spaces are often designed by and for adults. Gehl explored youth reactions to public spaces in the city and identified public realm qualities that invite youth to spend time – or make them want to leave. On the negative side, youth mentioned that factors like poor lighting, large empty spaces, places that are very loud or busy, and places lacking in safety and maintenance deterred them from spending time to enjoy a meal near their schools.
A set of key criteria could encourage youth to spend time and eat healthy food in public spaces near their schools
Through conversations and exercises, youth helped create a foodscapes checklist for young people with the following key factors:
Location
Close proximity to where physical activity takes place.
Walking distance from home and/or school.
Accessible day and night.
Environment
Varied seating options for large and small groups.
Access to sheltered outdoor spaces.
Safe and secure (protected from traffic, noise and crime).
Colourful and interesting (aesthetics).
Ability to take ownership.
Ability to be spontaneous (active or passive).
Offering
Welcoming and accepting staff.
Affordable food options.
Varied ways to stay (opportunity to bring own food, buy to stay or take-away, stay with friends who buy).
The team engaged with the target group on-site with co-design engagement methods.
(Photo taken in Nørrebro, June 2020)
Students at a local school were asked to assess the space, and 30 of the 34 students said they felt welcome and that the space seemed as if it was designed for them.
“Rema 1000 is the place where we use most of our money. We go 5-10 persons at a time. Rema is filled with school kids everyday because it’s the closest. We go everyday. In one break we sometimes go to Rema–Fakta–Rema. Staff in Fakta are nicer… We buy discounted goods, small pizzas, cakes, pastry and candy. We’re looking for discounts and to-go.”
– Solveig (16), Nørrebro
The 12 Quality Criteria is a tool used by Gehl for many projects worldwide, but this version is customised with input from young people engaged in pilot development and evaluation.
Click to enlarge.
Pilot Design
Testing ideas to promote sustainable diets amongst youth
These findings led the team to two hunches:
If we create enticing public spaces near schools designed with young people's preferences in mind, youth will spend more time there - instead of in fast food restaurants and grocery stores.
If we make an affordable Planetary Health Diet accessible to youth in these spaces, youth will adopt more healthy and sustainable eating behaviours.
To test these ideas, in 2020 Gehl created two pilot interventions in Nørrebro and Vesterbro, using the foodscapes checklist for young people as a guide. Each pilot aimed to create an enticing public space that promoted sustainable eating and included new outdoor furniture, attractive and edible planting, food trucks that offered a Planetary Health Diet at a subsidized price, and supermarket-prepared meals which were subsidized and planned according to Planetary Health Diet guidelines. Each intervention was placed strategically between a secondary school and a supermarket, in a location where the team had previously observed unhealthy food habits trending among young teens in 2019.
The pilots took place over the course of six weeks in 2020. Three design concepts were phased in throughout the process to enable the team to understand the impact of each concept in shifting dietary behaviours. The three concepts were:
A new place to sit and stay
A food truck offering affordably priced Planetary Health Diet dishes
Supermarket price reductions on Planetary Health Diet meals and food products
The wooden furniture was designed and constructed by fabricators at BetaLab, with additional furniture donated by Out-sider furniture.
A sustainable planting strategy was designed and managed by Edith Welker, with plants grown by Grennessminde, a local farm outside of Copenhagen.
Measure, test, refine
During the pilot phase, the team continuously measured the pilots’ effect and used these findings to adjust the pilots. A wide range of methods were used to test impact:
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The team used intercept surveys to ask people what they thought of the pilot projects and how they influenced their food habits and choices. The intercept surveys deployed also used the same 2019 questions asked about perception and everyday habits in order to make a comparative analysis.
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Gehl conducted a follow up Foodscape Survey to understand how the pilot interventions were influencing public life, assessing how many people were visiting the pilots, how long they stayed, and what public life and food related behaviours they engaged in. The team also studied the demographics of people present to understand if pilots were used by the target youth population or different age groups.
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The on-site food trucks tracked sales to determine demand for their food offering and whether it was appealing to young people. Interestingly, youth who were interviewed admitted to not having considered the food trucks as an option for purchasing a meal based on their perception that it was out of their price range, even though the meals were subsidized. A primary learning was that despite offering a food option attractive to young people, if it is not packaged or sold in an aesthetic that appears affordable, they will not engage with it.
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The team worked hands-on with the supermarket kitchen staff to introduce a to-go Planetary Health Diet meal. This effort made evident the complex barriers to shifting ingredients in a supermarket's kitchen due to the lack of capacity, resources, willingness and procurement processes. Supermarket sales data informed whether the pilots had an impact on the purchases at the supermarkets near them. While it was difficult to determine if sales generally were altered, visitors to the supermarket gave consistent feedback that they found the outdoor seating improvements to also increase their positive perceptions of the supermarket itself.
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Gehl conducted focus groups with local young people who attended the adjacent schools. A selection of students were identified by school staff to assess the pilots. This effort was made to better understand their perceptions of a healthy diet and if the pilot interventions changed those perceptions. We asked them to rate the spaces based on their perception of safety, inclusion, belonging, joy, and healthy food access.
Overall, the study and pilots supported the hypothesis that the urban environment can influence an awareness of the impact of people's diets, including hyper-local public space interventions. However, while the healthy public realm pilots created some measurable behaviour change, increasing healthy food behaviours, socialising, and time spent in the public space, the pilot was not conclusive if this was lasting behavioural change. Young people spent less time on their phones and more time socialising with their peers. The edible plants in public spaces were also successful in educating people on healthy diet possibilities.
Impact assessment
A food truck visited both sites, to test and measure the effect of introducing healthy planetary food options.
Before the pilot, young people visited the supermarket often and few people spent time in the public realm outside the school.
The first intervention introduced public seating. Young people in the area began to socialise more, spend more time, and engage in more activities. Adults with small children also paused in the space on the way to and from the market.
The second intervention introduced a food truck offering a low-cost planetary meal. Young people were curious, asking what was served and taste testing, but did not purchase much. Youth also spent less time on their phones.
The final intervention introduced targeted deals at the supermarket, supporting a planetary diet. Unfortunately, the sales data was not over long enough timespan, to indicate an increase in the amount of healthy food consumed by young people.
Climate impact from a planetary diet
The Nørrebro pilot had a potential to save approximately 1.330 tonnes of CO2 annually, assuming 450 people per day stayed to eat 1 planetary meal, saving 3,64 tonnes of CO2.
The Vesterbro pilot had a potential to save approximately 250 tonnes of CO2 annually, assuming 85 people per day stayed to eat 1 planetary meal, saving 3,64 tonnes of CO2 per day.
6 principles on how the physical environment can help shift urban diets
Using these insights, the team devised a list of six principles to inspire other cities to conduct their own Foodscape Assessments and design pilots that could shift dietary behaviours.
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If you want to change behaviour, create a place for all people. Bringing in new people or inviting already existing people to stay can be challenging, but it is possible. If people enjoy a public space, it is likely because the place is comfortable, safe, easy to access, and provides the right mix of amenities. Infuse a public space with good functions, comfortable programming, and responsive design and people will feel welcomed to use it. This deliberate invitation is often felt by people using a public space, and if people use it, they probably like it.
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Learn your audience’s design language to increase food awareness: Everyone has a cultural, social, and environmental way of perceiving their food environment. What is attractive and exciting to one may be boring or invisible to another. To expand and diversify people’s dietary habits, introduce new options in a context that makes sense to that audience. For example, the team learnt that in Copenhagen, teens view outdoor café seating and outdoor plants as an indicator of how expensive the food is. Keep in mind that the offering and the design of that offer should change depending on your audience.
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Don’t just guess, talk to your target audiences continuously to meet their needs: Reduce possible barriers for success by engaging people as early as possible in the project process. Participation is central to making people feel they have been invited. Many things can go wrong with piloting in the public realm; being flexible and open to addressing unique, neighbourhood-specific agendas rather than standard city priorities can help ensure a project that will be used by those intended to use it. You can involve people in designing the project through workshops or focus groups, and use public engagement insights from the beginning to evaluate success. This can help hold the project team accountable and make the product more effective.
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If you want to shift diets, start by offering food options at a reasonable price: In over 800 interviews conducted across two European cities, Copenhagen and London, price featured heavily as a determining factor to what people eat. It can be difficult to let demand lead sales because people often don’t know how to make their demands known. That study and this work show the real potential of subsidizing healthy and sustainable menus and can induce a demand to be seen and felt by food providers. Awareness on shifting diets as a result may change sales patterns in our cities fundamentally.
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Be open about your test initiative, and welcome people to participate with their great ideas: It’s easy to overlook communication when introducing pilots in the public realm, whether it is food products, food places, seating areas or other interventions. Signage about the project and its timeline will keep people from expecting more than you can deliver. At the same time, ways for people to continuously give feedback can help show you are here to listen and ready to react to changing needs. Piloting in the public realm is an exchange. If you want people to engage or change behaviours, be as up front as possible, especially when it comes to food options. We learned that just making a food option available isn’t enough – promote it online, make visible signage, and tell people before it is in place! When it comes to communication, more is more.
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Measure first to track if your pilot has successfully shifted diets or changed behaviour: Collecting people-centred baseline data will inform the boundaries of your project and define how you can measure success. Asking “When, where, and who” is the first step in understanding what to prioritize for your food environment project. You can do this by measuring people’s behaviour with observational research before you pilot, while your pilot is live, and even after it has been implemented.
Want to learn more?
Check out our other case studies or explore the methods used.