Humboldt-Scholarship
‘Sustainability and Global Justice’

Elena Bettenhäuser, M.Sc. Integrated Natural Resource Management
Irene Brown, M.A. Social Sciences
Katharina Pietsch, M.Sc. Global Change Geography
Leonard Stephan, M.A. Philosophy
Antonia Täsch, M.A. Urbane Geographien

This exploratory study, conducted by an interdisciplinary team at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, investigates which communication narratives most effectively encourage consumers to adopt eating habits aligned with the Planetary Health Diet (PHD). Between October 2025 and January 2026, 106 participants were surveyed outside supermarkets in Berlin and Brandenburg, rating five narrative framings – health, climate/environment, social justice, tradition/regional identity, and cost – on both persuasiveness and willingness to change behaviour, each on a 1-5 scale.
The key findings show that dietary identity was the strongest predictor: participants already eating plant-based diets found nearly all narratives more convincing, though their willingness to adapt further was understandably lower since they already practice what is being advocated. Gender played a notable role specifically for the climate narrative, with women scoring way higher on both persuasiveness and behavioural readiness. Higher education was associated with lower receptivity to the tradition narrative. Contrary to the researchers’ hypothesis, no strong differences emerged between Berlin and Brandenburg respondents, possibly due to the small and unevenly distributed sample. The study also found that narrative persuasiveness and actual willingness to change behaviour can be decoupled – a finding with practical implications for intervention design. The authors recommend target-group-specific communication strategies and call for larger, more representative follow-up studies.

The group has produced three outcomes (in German) that are available for download: a poster, a presentation and a paper (Narrative und Konsumverhalten im Kontext nachhaltiger Ernährung).