In the US, carbon emissions connected with consumer purchases are twice as high as those related to home energy use and personal travel. Unfortunately, it’s challenging for consumers to get information about these emissions, even when they want to make environmentally friendly choices. A recent study in PNAS uses a series of tech interface experiments to assess whether carbon offset information will influence consumer behavior, finding that manufacturers can improve consumer satisfaction and reduce their environmental impact by providing consumers with environmentally friendly options.

These researchers were interested in techniques that make environmentally friendly choices easy for consumers to identify and whether those affect consumer choices. The choices were tested in the context of shipping options, ridesharing services, and online video streaming.

The first two experiments looked at Amazon Prime shipping. One of the benefits of Amazon Prime membership is free two-day shipping, so many consumers automatically select this even if they do not need their items within two days. To incentivize the selection of slower shipping, Amazon offers Prime customers a $1 credit if they select a no-rush shipping option instead.

During the first shipping experiment, Amazon’s informed consumers that it buys carbon offsets for their shipping only if they chose the no-rush option. This experiment showed consumers selected the green shipping option as often as they selected the $1 credit. However, it also showed that consumers preferred greener shipping for items that were more likely to be heavy and have a large shipping carbon footprint.

In the second shipping experiment, individuals were allowed to add the cost of carbon offsets to their bills. Consistent with lots of other data, consumers were much more likely to pay for carbon offsets when this option was checked by default. They were no more likely to pay for carbon offsets than they were to select the $1 credit for no-rush shipping, so this particularly intervention may not be the most effective way to encourage online shoppers to make environmentally friendly choices.

In terms of ridesharing experiments, the researchers looked at consumers’ willingness to purchase carbon offsets when using Uber. Using the experimental data from this trial, they found that the majority of consumers would be willing to add a few extra dollars on to their Uber bill to cover the environmental cost of their rides. Many consumers also reported that they would think more highly of Uber if it offered the option to purchase carbon offsets for their rides. Based on the experimental data, it appears if Uber were to add this option, consumers would be likely to pay extra to be environmentally friendly, and would be more satisfied with their Uber experience.

An additional experiment was conducted on Netflix. In this experiment, the Netflix interface was modified to include information about carbon footprints of the three different streaming resolutions that are available to customers, and consumers were then asked to select a preferred resolution. Almost half of all participants would prefer to select a less carbon-intense streaming resolution for their videos.

The final experiment examined carbon offset preferences for people who use AirBnB. The researchers adjusted AirBnB’s platform so that listings would be shown as more or less relatively environmentally friendly. They found that listings were generally preferred by consumers if they were rated as more environmentally friendly, with a lower carbon footprint, but the difference wasn’t statistically significant.

These experiments seem to show that if reliable, simple, and credible carbon footprint information is available to consumers, many would be more likely to select the more environmentally friendly option, and would feel more satisfied with the service they’re using. These researchers think that, as tech companies ponder their next business moves, they should consider making more environmental impact information available to customers.

PNAS, 2016. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1522211113 (About DOIs).

Listing image by NASA