Study Suggests New Business Model for Carbon Offset Providers

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- a research organization that aims to make the aviation industry more sustainable, in partnership with the has come up with a study that tries to and their willingness to pay.

The research was conducted by and covered 487 business/leisure fliers at the Manchester Airport. Of those polled, more than 75% were aware of the fact that air travel causes global warming but fewer than 10% had chosen to offset their travel emissions. The low rate of offset purchase was attributed to the lack of knowledge - over 50% of the passengers didn’t know about carbon offsets or how they could be purchased. Also, about a quarter was skeptical about the effectiveness of carbon offsets or the cost factor.

But overall the results suggested an inclination to pay for emission reduction schemes - 17% said that they would pay for offsets in full, while 30%  was willing to pay half of the offsetting cost. Only 30%  said that they would not pay for offsets.

The results led Hooper to conclude that the offsetting industry needs to adopt a new system that would be an amalgamation of the standardized approach- to meet the needs of the customers looking to fully offset their emissions, as well as “a much simpler system where customers can pay a flat rate as some sort of climate compensation” - for those wanting to make a partial contribution.

However, Edward Hanrihan of is not in favor of the “climate compensation” model:

“If you allow people to only take responsibility for, say, half their emissions then you have to ask if you are really following environmental best practice.”