Caixia (Ivy) Gan

Sustainability is a globally promoted concept, yet its meaning is often shaped by cultural context. Existing research has largely been informed by Western‐centric understandings of sustainability, leaving limited insight into how sustainability is interpreted across diverse cultural settings. This study addresses this gap by examining how members of the general public from different cultural backgrounds understand sustainability. Using the widely adopted environmental, economic, social, and cultural sustainability framework as a discussion prompt, the research compares perspectives from New Zealand Western, New Zealand Indigenous Māori, and urban Chinese participants. Qualitative data were collected through 24 focus groups and analysed thematically to explore culturally situated interpretations of sustainability. The findings reveal both shared concerns for long‐term wellbeing and significant differences in how participants understood human–nature relationships, responsibility, agency, community, and cultural continuity. Interpreted through cultural habitus and cross‐cultural perspectives, these differences reflect distinct ontological and epistemological assumptions through which sustainability becomes meaningful. The study contributes to sustainability scholarship by highlighting the existence of multiple sustainability epistemologies and challenging universalistic assumptions within sustainability discourse. The findings suggest that effective global sustainability governance requires not only shared sustainability goals but also sufficient flexibility to accommodate diverse knowledge systems, cultural narratives, and governance traditions within plural epistemic contexts.

Future food technologies (FFTs) are reconfiguring food provisioning by introducing new product choices, increasing efficiency, and promoting sustainability. However, as FFTs become more agentic, they also surface paradoxical tensions between consumers, producers, and technological infrastructures. This study examines what these paradoxes do: how tensions enacted in consumer discourse constitute the ongoing shaping of FFT-mediated food provisioning markets. Drawing on qualitative data from 24 focus groups (n = 117) in Aotearoa New Zealand, we show how paradoxical tensions constitute market shaping across three areas: (1) algorithmic governance of market choices, (2) corporate dominance in market access, and (3) legitimizing frameworks for market evolution. While FFTs promise optimized, “perfect” food experiences and new forms of market access, they simultaneously constitute predefined autonomy, imbalanced participation, and constrained agency through algorithmic standardization, corporate consolidation, and exclusionary market practices. Applying paradox theory, we show how participants’ discursive practices perform institutional work that keeps FFT markets under continuous negotiation. These tensions are therefore generative rather than merely disruptive, constituting the ongoing configuration of technology-mediated food provisioning systems. This research contributes to macromarketing by showing how paradoxical tensions do not simply accompany FFT market evolution but organize the discursive and institutional work through which food provisioning systems are assembled, contested, and reconfigured. The findings offer insights for policymakers, industry stakeholders, and scholars examining the evolution of food systems in technology-mediated markets.

Purpose: This study draws on value congruence theory and epistemic motivation theory to examine whether the effect of ethical and environmental appeals on consumers’ perceptions of technological improvement and support for government initiatives varies across different novel food technologies, including cellular agriculture, gene editing and controlled environment agriculture. It further investigates whether epistemic value acts as a psychological mechanism that mediates these effects. Design/methodology/approach: A 3 (appeal: ethical, environmental and control) × 3 (food technology: cellular agriculture, gene editing and controlled environment agriculture) between-subjects experimental design was employed to assess the effectiveness of strategic communication in enhancing consumer perceptions. Mediation analyses tested whether epistemic value explains the relationship between these relationships. Findings: Based on data from 1,360 New Zealand consumers, ethical and environmental appeals increased support for cellular agriculture but not for gene editing or controlled environment agriculture, likely due to differences in how consumers perceive these technologies relative to the message appeals. Additionally, epistemic value emerged as a key psychological mechanism that helps explain these differential effects. Originality/value: This study highlights the importance of aligning message appeals with consumers’ perceptions of novel food technologies. It provides both theoretical and practical insights for improving public support for novel food technologies through more targeted and aligned communication strategies.

Technology and innovation are important in mitigating the risks imposed by climate change in many areas, including agriculture and food production. Many novel and emerging agri-food technologies are marching their way to market; however, consumer perceptions are crucial to the adoption of new agri-food technologies which claim to be more sustainable than conventional growing systems. This study investigates how the sense of control, an important psychological factor for human behaviours, may interact with consumers’ perceptions of new agri-food technologies, and consequently affect their attitudes towards new technologies for future food production and consumption in the age of climate change. In total, 23 focus groups (n = 117) were conducted across New Zealand using Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA, a technology-based approach to food production that optimises growing conditions for plants through the regulation of environmental factors) as the exemplar technology for discussion. Findings reveal that, when climate change and the challenge of feeding the world sustainably were presented, CEA was accepted as a means to retain control over climate and environmental crises. Meanwhile, CEA was also speculated as a threat to consumers’ sense of control concerning individual body and health, social order, and ecosystem order. To manage the disruptions that CEA may impose on perceived control, consumers may adopt different strategies to compensate for the perceived loss in their sense of control.

The ongoing criticism of conventional agricultural activities being unsustainable in the face of climate change and global population growth has been one of the key drivers for technological innovation in this space. Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), especially in the high-tech form of vertical farming, as a new agri-food technology, has been positioned as a sustainable solution to the dilemma of feeding the world and preserving the planet. Acknowledging sustainability as a multi-dimensional concept encompassing environmental, economic, social, and cultural aspects, this review briefly outlines the evolving meaning of sustainability, and how CEA has been framed as sustainable in the literature. Specifically, the review examines studies that have investigated consumer perceptions and acceptance of CEA and discussed how sustainability features of CEA were presented to consumers in a diverse way across these studies. The review highlights that the social and cultural dimensions of sustainability were largely neglected not only in research that focused on the development of CEA, but also in the exploration of consumers’ perceptions of CEA. A more holistic examination of the sustainability of CEA and a comprehensive understanding from consumers is important for transitioning towards more sustainable production systems enabled by new technologies such as CEA.