Willingness to Pay for Voluntary Carbon Offsets in Aviation

The aviation sector accounts for a rising share of global CO₂ emissions, prompting the development of voluntary carbon offset schemes that enable passengers and airlines to compensate for flight-related greenhouse gases. Willingness to pay (WTP) for such offsets varies considerably, reflecting individual environmental attitudes, trust in offset providers, perceived effectiveness of projects and price sensitivities. Discrete choice experiments have identified distinct traveller segments—from eco-conscious passengers to highly cost-averse groups—each with specific preferences for accreditation standards, local versus international project funding and communication styles. Field studies comparing hypothetical declarations with actual purchase behaviour reveal a persistent gap: median WTP often registers at zero, while mean WTP falls far below prevailing carbon-market prices. Framing effects, such as presenting offsets as “upstream” interventions targeting emission sources, further shape consumer receptivity and policy support. These findings underscore the challenge of mobilising market-based instruments to address aviation’s environmental impact, and point to tailored messaging, transparent project accreditation and structural policy incentives as critical levers for increasing voluntary offset uptake and aligning passenger behaviour with climate-mitigation goals.

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Willingness to Pay for Voluntary Carbon Offsets in Aviation publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in willingness to pay for voluntary carbon offsets in aviation across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Voluntary carbon offset: A market instrument allowing individuals or organisations to invest in emission-reduction or removal projects to compensate for their own greenhouse gas emissions.

Willingness to pay (WTP): The maximum amount an individual is prepared to spend to secure a good or service, in this context to offset CO₂ emissions from air travel.

Stated-preference approach: A survey-based method in which respondents declare hypothetical WTP under controlled experimental conditions.

Revealed-preference approach: An observational method that infers actual WTP from real-world purchasing behaviour or transactional data.

Discrete choice experiment: A quantitative technique that presents respondents with sets of alternative scenarios to elicit preferences and trade-offs among product attributes.

References

1. Which types of product attributes lead to aviation voluntary carbon offsetting among air passengers?. Tourism Management (2021).
2. Willingness-to-pay for carbon dioxide offsets: Field evidence on revealed preferences in the aviation industry. Global Environmental Change (2022).
3. A carbon price by another name may seem sweeter: Consumers prefer upstream offsets to downstream taxes. Journal of Environmental Psychology (2019).