Abstract

We study the environmental sustainability of individuals’ consumption choices using unique data from a FinTech App that tracks users’ spending and emissions at the transaction level. Using a randomized encouragement design, we show that individuals are likely to purchase carbon calculator services that provide them with detailed transaction-level information about their emissions. However, such a tool does not cause significant changes in their consumption and emissions. On the other hand, services that offset individuals’ emissions by planting trees are less likely to be adopted but prove effective in reducing users’ net emissions. Conditioning on age, gender, and income does not alter our findings. Our results show the challenges and opportunities associated with the automated tools promoting sustainable behavior that were initially confined to specialized FinTech Apps and are now becoming widespread across large financial institutions.

Paper