The Ambiguous Impact of Information Related to Fish Sustainability

Abstract

Abstract Fish sustainability raises many questions regarding the impact of both generic information and ecolabels on citizens’ consumption. An experiment was conducted in France to evaluate the impact of different types of information on participants’ WTP for canned fish. For starting the experiment, participants bid for canned tuna and sardines, sold without any quality labels. Explanatory messages on health and sustainability were delivered by balancing positive and negative information, and varying the order of information across subgroups. It is shown that only negative descriptions, including the ones on sustainability, lead to significant reductions in WTP for both tuna and sardines. In the second part of the experiment, participants received a new set of canned tuna, with or without quality labels. We observe a significantly higher WTP for canned tuna sold with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) label compared to the WTP for canned tuna sold without any label. This positive premium for such a label indicating the fish sustainability differs from results in the first part of the experiment, in which, for sardines, the only significant message leads to a reduction in WTP, even if sardines are relatively healthy and sustainable.