The awareness and willingness of air travellers to pay for voluntary carbon offsets and their co-benefits

Abstract

Several airlines in Australia have initiated voluntary carbon offset (VCO) programs, called 'Fly Carbon Neutral', to encourage their customers to offset the carbon emissions of their flight. A VCO scheme aims to 'neutralise' emissions from a particular activity, by compensating with carbon reduction projects in another sector. As well as carbon sequestration, these activities often bring secondary benefits such as wildlife protection. There are currently few studies about the awareness and willingness to pay to offset carbon emission from flying. This paper conducted a choice experiment study to address this knowledge gap, by estimating Australian air travellers' willingness to pay for different attributes of carbon offset projects. Analyses reveal that values for carbon offset projects depend on respondent's perceptions of the importance of the aviation industry's contribution to the global carbon emissions, membership of environmental organisation, education level, income and their age. Results show that the majority of respondents preferred to not buy an offset. Of those respondents willing to buy an offset, most preferred renewable energy projects located in their own state over reforestation or forest protection projects in other states or overseas. The results will provide a better understanding of air travellers' preference, thus to improve future carbon offset policies making.