Willingness to pay for flying carbon neutral in Australia: an exploratory study of offsetter profiles

Abstract

Although voluntary carbon offsets have played a key role in the response to addressing climate change in the aviation sector, little is known about consumer preferences for such offsets and their offsetting behaviour in Australia. This paper developed and applied a choice modelling study to measure the economic values of aviation carbon mitigation and to identify major factors influencing air travellers' voluntary climate action. Results show that respondents have a mean willingness to pay (WTP) of AU$21.38 per tonne of CO 2 reduced in the form of voluntary carbon offsets per person. Female travellers might have a higher economic value of carbon mitigation than male counterparts while climate sceptics who are less likely to be carbon offsetters might in fact hold a higher WTP value than non-sceptical travellers. The findings suggest that in terms of WTP the best profile of offset projects might be renewable energy projects in developing countries, of which resulting carbon credits can reduce company legal liabilities. Positive support was found for mitigation measures by airlines, with technological efficiencies more strongly supported than operational practices and biofuels. This paper challenges previous understandings of environmentally motivated behaviour, and notes that behaviour profiles are still evolving.

Can Companies Induce Sustainable Consumption? The Impact of Knowledge and Social Embeddedness on Airline Sustainability Programs in the U.S.

“…Echoing the findings of Carrus et al [29], Venkatesh et al [30], and Perugini and Bagozzi [22], attitude (VCO β = 0.391, p < 0.001; CFG β = 0.546, p < 0.001) and subjective norms (VCO β = 0.475, p < 0.001; CFG β = 0.245, p < 0.001) were found to exert a positive influence on desire, and desire exerting a positive influence on intention (VCO β = 0.946, p < 0.001; CFG β = 0.998, p < 0.001) for both the VCO and CFG programs, supporting H1a,b and H2a-d. Perceived behavioral control does not have a significant influence on desire (VCO β = 0.042, p = 0.654; CFG β = 0.110, p = 0.155) for both the VCO and CFG programs, not supporting H3a,b and reflecting the findings of Whitmarsh and O'Neill [14], Choi and Ritchie [62], and Chen [25]. The influence of anticipated emotions on the VCO and CFG programs were examined for differences.…”

Integration across a metacoupled world

“…If the spillover systems suffer from negative effects, it is important to provide adequate compensation to offset those negative effects. There is awareness of and willingness to pay for carbon offsets in some travel-related activities (Choi and Ritchie 2014), and similar methods can be applied to offset the cost of CO 2 emissions from tourism and forest harvesting in Wolong and beyond.…”

Research in Sustainable Tourism: A Longitudinal Study of Articles between 2008 and 2017

“…Hence, tourism has actually become a major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide [22] despite the many forms of tourism, such as coastal tourism [23], ski tourism [24,25], and animal watching tourism [26,27] Major studies have examined the climate change that tourism brings from the perspective of tourists. For example, studies have been conducted on the difficulty of adopting low-carbon vacations [29,30], the profile of travelers who have actually paid for the carbon emissions generated by their air travel [31,32] and those who intend to pay [33], the role of values in influencing tourists to reduce air travel [34], and the reasons behind their reluctance to change their behavior to better address the issue of climate change [35]. However, climate change remains an overlooked phenomenon for large quantities of tourists from developing countries [36].…”