Trial reportBMC public health2025
Does the range of ecolabels on offer alter their impact on meal selection? An online randomised control trial.
Trial report in BMC public health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundEnvironmentally sustainable meals might be more likely to be selected when ecolabels indicating environmental impact are present, but the effectiveness of ecolabels may depend on the range of meal options available (e.g. their comparative environmental impact).
methodsWe ran a proof-of-principle study to test whether changing the range of ecolabel values (A-E: lowest - highest impact) shown in hypothetical meal selection scenarios affected sustainable meal choices. In a randomised controlled trial, all participants were presented with five themed meal selection scenarios, which contained three realistic meal options (e.g. a vegetarian, chicken, or beef burger) from which they selected their preferred option. We randomised a sample of the UK population (n = 2646) to a control (no ecolabels present) or intervention (ecolabels present) group. Participants in the intervention group were randomised to see different combinations of ecolabels assigned to each meal, in each scenario. For example, one participant could see ecolabels 'A', 'C' and 'E' assigned to meals in one scenario, whilst another may see 'B', 'C', 'D'.
resultsWe found that whilst ecolabels discouraged selection of the least sustainable meals in comparison to control (no ecolabels present), changing the range of ecolabels on offer had little effect on sustainable meal selection. The only exception was that participants who saw 'C' ecolabels uniformly assigned to each meal had significantly lower odds of choosing a sustainable item than participants who saw the widest range of ecolabels ('A', 'C' and 'E') (OR for selecting the lowest impact product (vs. medium or highest impact products): 0.71, CI: 0.58-0.88, p = 0.001).
conclusionsWe found that the widest range of ecolabels is more effective than the narrowest, with limited evidence on the impact of intermediate ranges.
trial registrationRegistered 6/6/2023 on the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/69xct/ ).
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.