Royale with climate change? Labelling fast food with climate impacts could curb emissions

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-06-24 01:00

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Using an online survey, US researchers suggest putting labels on fast food that show how much items impact the climate could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the negative climate issues associated with fast food. The team enlisted over 10,000 people, and say that when the participants were shown labels detailing the climate impact of food, they were less likely to select the most damaging foods, compared with being shown a QR code that linked to additional menu information but no climate impact information. Labels were even more effective when they included a grade of climate damage from A-F, especially when the label included a scale explaining the grading system. This had an additional benefit, the researchers note, because the participants shown these labels were, on average, more likely to select less fatty foods, compared with those shown just the QR code.