Adopting more sustainable consumption habits has been identified as a necessary step in the progression towards a sustainable society. In the area of sustainable consumption, personal food behaviour represents a strong leverage point. University students have been identified as a strategic audience; habits established during this transformative period can track forward into later life. This study seeks to identify the barriers inhibiting students from eating more sustainably. Perceived benefits of eating more sustainably, student food preferences, and student definitions of sustainable food are also identified. Focus groups, surveys, and interviews were carried out at universities in Europe, North America and Australia. Results show that perceived cost of sustainable food and a lack of knowledge, time and availability were ubiquitous barriers preventing students from adopting more sustainable eating habits. In addition to gathering the perceptions of others, the authors’ understanding of the challenges and benefits of eating more sustainably was augmented by a month-long self-study. Results from the self-study show that it is feasible to eat more sustainably without incurring additional costs. Recommendations informed by the focus groups, surveys, interviews and self-study are made to help students overcome the barriers to eating more sustainably.

Sustainable communication is intensively being done through social media platforms such as YouTube to create awareness among people. It is imperative to encourage people to adopt sustainable eating to have better health and a better environment—this research study aimed at analyzing the persuasive discourse in videos related to sustainable eating on YouTube. For this, the research has applied rhetorical analysis to three YouTube videos, focusing on the basic persuasive strategies: ethos, pathos, and logos. The analysis discussed how the speakers in these videos encourage their viewers to adopt sustainable eating. Through comparing these videos, the findings suggested what made the videos more persuasive and what weakened their ability to appeal to the audience. The results of the study contribute to the sustainable communicators who are willing to persuade their viewers to adopt sustainable eating.