Alex Neill, PhD, Associate Lecturer and PhD Researcher at Newcastle University, will present the EEEP Seminar Series, “Towards Zero Waste Dining: Evaluating the Impact of Interventions on Sustainable Consumer Behavior” on May 19, 2026.
Abstract:
In the UK, the hospitality sector generates 8% of the country’s total food waste. This has significant social, economic, and environmental costs. While restaurants already adopt a number of practices to reduce kitchen waste, plate waste remains a complex issue driven by service design and diner behaviour. This research draws on the Behaviour Change Wheel framework to develop an online experiment testing three interventions to reduce plate waste: direct server interactions with diners, indirect informational nudges, and a combination of both. The outcome variables of these interventions are: impact on diners’ intentions to customise orders; adjust portion sizes; and adopt “to-go” boxes. Our findings show that indirect and combined interventions are highly effective at shifting intentions across a broad demographic. This provides hospitality managers with a practical proof of concept for embedding waste reduction into customer facing daily operations. Ultimately, small changes in service can ensure the water, energy, and effort used to produce food are valued and used, rather than thrown away.
Bio:
An associate lecturer and PhD researcher in Applied Social Sciences at Newcastle University, Alex specializes in marketing, sustainable food supply chains, food and agri-business. She brings a practical business perspective to her teaching, having previously managed marketing and operations at organizations including The Economist and Clarion Events. Her current research is focused on understanding and minimizing hospitality food waste.