Digital eco-nudging: What makes people pay for carbon offsets?
Project Description
Our research focuses on voluntary carbon offset payments in online flight booking processes, in particular, on how the decision process for carbon offset payments should be designed to increase payments, so as to reduce the negative impact of aviation on the environment.
Fuel consumption through aviation contributes significantly to global carbon emissions, and is expected to rise further, influenced by both more efficient technologies on the one hand and increasing air travel on the other. Besides employing not-yet-existing sustainable technologies or dramatically reducing air travel, carbon offsets might be a short-term solution to mitigate the negative impact of aviation on our climate. Several airlines have already introduced carbon offset schemes to reduce the net impact of air travel. Still, research shows that actual payments are still low. As flight bookings are often done through online booking systems, this class of web-based information systems might play a salient role in mitigating the negative impact on aviation on our climate and thus warrants further investigation.
Our research project, thus, focuses on integrating two fields, i.e., green information systems and human-computer interaction, with the particular goals of explaining decisions on carbon offset payment in digital environments and designing mechanisms to increase the willingness to pay for carbon offsets.
Fuel consumption through aviation contributes significantly to global carbon emissions, and is expected to rise further, influenced by both more efficient technologies on the one hand and increasing air travel on the other. Besides employing not-yet-existing sustainable technologies or dramatically reducing air travel, carbon offsets might be a short-term solution to mitigate the negative impact of aviation on our climate. Several airlines have already introduced carbon offset schemes to reduce the net impact of air travel. Still, research shows that actual payments are still low. As flight bookings are often done through online booking systems, this class of web-based information systems might play a salient role in mitigating the negative impact on aviation on our climate and thus warrants further investigation.
Our research project, thus, focuses on integrating two fields, i.e., green information systems and human-computer interaction, with the particular goals of explaining decisions on carbon offset payment in digital environments and designing mechanisms to increase the willingness to pay for carbon offsets.
