IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/sustdv/v33y2025i2p3151-3169.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Beyond the Bin: The Influence of Motivation, Opportunity, and Ability on Food Waste Behavior in Households

Author

Listed:
  • Wibke Heidig
  • Thomas Dobbelstein
  • Roger B. Mason

Abstract

This study examined household food waste behavior building upon a framework that integrates the motivation‐opportunity‐ability model (MOA), the theory of planned behavior (TPB), and norm activation model (NAM) enriched with insights from social practices theory (SPT). Using a dual‐country sample (Germany and South Africa), an online survey (n = 1065) measured how motivation, opportunity, and ability drive self‐reported food waste behavior. The results show that the ability to reduce food waste, that is, habits and perceived and actual knowledge, unfold a strong influence on reported food waste behavior. Quite surprisingly, motivation to engage in food waste reduction, due to attitude, values, and ascription of responsibility, has the lowest impact on reported food waste behavior. Our findings enhance the current understanding of food waste drivers and highlight the significance of socio‐psychological determinants of behavior, specifically ability and habits. The implications for both research and practical applications are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Wibke Heidig & Thomas Dobbelstein & Roger B. Mason, 2025. "Beyond the Bin: The Influence of Motivation, Opportunity, and Ability on Food Waste Behavior in Households," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(2), pages 3151-3169, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:33:y:2025:i:2:p:3151-3169
    DOI: 10.1002/sd.3288
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.3288
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sd.3288?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:33:y:2025:i:2:p:3151-3169. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1719 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.