The Impacts of Pro-environmental Values and Knowledge on Aviation Voluntary Carbon Offsetting: A Mainland China Study

ABSTRACT

Voluntary Carbon Offsetting (VCO) scheme is an imperative part of airlines’ practice to mitigate carbon emission problems. While previous studies have explored numerous factors influencing air travelers’ participation, the mechanism of how general value systems impact specific VCO behaviors still remains unclear. Meanwhile, the VCO research and practice are still scant in mainland China which carries the world’s second-largest air passengers. Thereby, this study sets out to investigate how Chinese air passengers’ pro-environmental values affect their VCO participation willingness and proposes the aviation and VCO knowledge to be a mediating factor in this process. By exploring the structural equation model, the relationships among the pro-environmental values, aviation, and VCO knowledge, and VCO participation intention are confirmed. Then, the indirect effect of aviation and VCO knowledge from non-egoistic value orientations to the VCO participation is verified. This research expands extant studies into the mainland China context and suggests one’s value system as an initial factor influencing the VCO participation behaviors. Based on the findings, some practical suggestions are also presented.

摘要

‘自愿碳抵消项目’是航空公司解决碳排放问题的重要手段 虽然先前的研究探索了诸多影响旅客参与的因素, 但宏观的价值体系如何影响特定的减碳行为仍值得探究 同时, 中国作为全球第二航空大国, 对有关碳抵消项目的研究和实践依然十分缺乏 因此, 本文旨在探讨中国旅客的环保价值观和航空与碳排放知识如何影响其‘自愿碳抵消项目’的参与意愿 根据结构方程模型, 本文确认了价值观, 知识和意愿三者之间的作用机制, 并进一步证明了知识从非利己主义价值取向到参与意愿的中介效果 本研究聚焦于中国大陆背景, 提出价值观应作为推动‘自愿碳抵消项目’的首要因素 最后, 根据研究发现, 本文提出了一些可行的建议

KEYWORDS:

• Carbon emission
• carbon offsetting
• aviation
• environmental value
• environmental knowledge
• China

关键词:

• 碳排放
• 碳抵消
• 航空
• 环保价值观
• 环保知识
• 中国

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yaozhi Zhang

Yaozhi Zhang is a master’s student of the Erasmus Mundus European Master in Tourism Management (EMTM) program. His research interests center on tourism research methods and smart tourism (E-mail: [email protected]).