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Abstract
Air travel is predicted to grow over the coming decades contributing to carbon emissions. Airlines have offered voluntary carbon offsetting for over a decade, yet less than 10% of air travellers purchase them. Previous studies ignore the broader policy or social context of sustainable transport and aviation offsetting. In a natural experiment, a panel of the same Australian residents was tracked over a three-year period before and after the historic COP21. A novel hierarchical model was also tested using Partial Least Squares SEM. Although behaviour specific attitudes and social norms were more influential at encouraging aviation carbon offsetting, global policy knowledge and effectiveness of climate change policies play an important role. Although no changes in ratings were detected over a three-year period, the effect of social norms on encouraging aviation offsetting became stronger in later years. Implications and future research directions to better understand the political and social context of carbon offsetting and sustainable transport are provided.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Professor Brent W. Ritchie Brent’s main research interest is tourism risk, crisis and disaster management and aviation carbon offsetting. He is interested in understanding the behaviour of tourism managers and travelers as well as the psychological factors that can influence behavioural outcomes.
Lintje Sie Lintje, a sessional lecturer, currently involves in an Australian Research Council Discovery project that explores the voluntary carbon offsetting behavioural specific attitudes and norms in Australia. Her research interests is related to travel-related decision making, positive psychology, experiences and subjective wellbeing.
Stefan Gössling Stefan is a professor at the Department of Service Management, Lund University, as well as the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University, both in Sweden. He is also the research coordinator at the Western Norway Research Institute. He is interested in all aspects related to the sustainability of tourism and transportation.
Larry Dwyer Larry hold’s honorary professorships in Australia and Ljubljana. He publishes widely in the areas of tourism economics, management, policy and planning. With over 200 publications in international journals, books, book chapters, government reports and monographs, he has been awarded numerous research grants to contribute to tourism knowledge.