Innovation for sustainable meat
This project explores the dynamics of innovation emerging in response to the ‘meat problem’.
As meat rises up the environmental and public health agendas, a range of ‘solutions’ are being promoted by different actors both within and outside the existing system of provision.
Some of these innovations aim to improve the existing system, such as new animal breeding technologies and rearing practices. Others, such as meat reduction initiatives, insect-based products, and lab-cultured meat, entail far greater disruption to the existing relationships, interests and cultural conventions which underpin current patterns in how meat is produced and consumed.
Our aims
This project investigates the interactions between:
- existing patterns of meat consumption
- existing patterns of meat production
- the social, cultural, technological and political-economic aspects of sustainable meat innovations.
These dynamics will be explored through in-depth case studies of the emergence, diffusion and embedding of different sustainable meat solutions in the UK.
Project leader
Project ouputs
- Neuman, N. Mylan, J. & Paddock, J. (2020) Exploring (non-)Meat Eating and ‘Translated Cuisines’ out of home: Evidence from three English cities, International Journal of Consumer Studies, 44(1), 25-32.
- Mylan, J. Morris, C. Beech, E. & Geels, F.W. (2019) Rage Against the Regime: Niche-regime interactions in the societal embedding of plant-based milk, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 31, 233-247.
- Morris, C. Mylan, J. & Beech, E. (2018) Substitution and Food System De-animalisation: The case of non-dairy milk, International Journal of the Sociology of Food and Agriculture, 25(1), 42-58.
- Mylan, J. (2018) Sustainable Consumption in Everyday Life: A qualitative study of UK consumer experiences of meat reduction, Sustainability, 10(7), 1-13.
- Browne, A. Mylan, J. & Zhu, D. (2017) On the ‘Meat Edge’? Meat Consumption and reduction in middle class urban China, Discover Society, December 2017.
- Mylan J. & Neuman, N. (2017) From Meat Free Days to Meat Free Diets?, Discover Society, August 2017.
- Mylan, J. (2016) Why Reducing Meat Eating isn’t a Response to Climate Change, Discover Society, September 2016.
