Gender Differences in Intentions to use a Personal Carbon Trading System

Abstract

Personal carbon trading systems (PCTS) have been hypothesized as one of the measures needing to be considered to combat global warming and reduce carbon emissions (references here). The research described in this paper examines baseline data collected as part of the Norfolk Island Carbon Health Evaluation (NICHE) project. The project aims to examine links between obesity related conditions and individuals' understanding of their carbon footprint. A personal carbon monitoring system was rolled out on the Island mid 2013 that allows users to review their carbon outputs against a baseline calculated from the initial survey. The analysis presented here examines the differences between males and females attitudes towards the adoption of PCTS from a baseline survey conducted prior to the roll out of the system. The analysis of the model by gender revealed that 'Health Consciousness' and 'Environmental Concerns' were significant predictors for both genders. 'Optimism' was also identified by both genders to be significant, but it was found to explain double the amount of variance for males than females. Whereas, 'Self Heath Evaluation' was found to only be a significant predictor of female attitudes towards a PCTS. Surprisingly, 'Environmental Action' was found not to be a significant predictor to either genders attitudes towards the adoption of PCTS.