Increasing adoption of voluntary carbon offsets among tourists

authored by

Anna Segerstedt, Ulrike Grote

Abstract

Air travellers have had the option to purchase voluntary carbon offsets (VCOs) available to them for almost a decade, yet adoption rates remain low. Drawing upon diffusion of innovations theory, and based on a sample of 449 German long-haul tourists, we analyse knowledge of VCOs, and using logit regressions, the probability of their purchasing VCOs. We investigate the profile of people who have actually purchased VCOs, unlike many earlier researchers who used stated preferences data to estimate willingness to pay. Our findings reveal that the drivers of adoption are primarily linked to lifestyle factors, including being young, adventurous, and having a vegetarian/low climate impact diet. A proportion of tourists are aware of VCOs but have not practiced offsetting to date, although they are positive towards the idea, are used to make donations, and are committed to environmental issues. Persuading travellers belonging to this group to actively engage in using VCOs is an important task for future VCO market development. It will be necessary to compare best-practice/less best practice airline policies, explore how to make VCO schemes more visible, and more closely examine the adopters market segment to improve communication strategies and encourage increased uptake of VCOs.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Environmental Economics and World Trade

Type

Article

Journal

Journal of sustainable tourism

Volume

24

Pages

1541-1554

No. of pages

14

ISSN

0966-9582

Publication date

2016

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Geography, Planning and Development, Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 8 - Decent Work and Economic Growth, SDG 13 - Climate Action

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2015.1125357 (Access: Closed)