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Majority of travelers admit they don't care about their carbon output

by Scott Carmichael (RSS feed) on Nov 24th 2009 at 2:00PM

Dutch bank ING asked their economic survey team to interview travelers about their opinion of CO2 output, and whether they really care about their impact on the environment.

As it turns out, only 15% of the 41,900 travelers interviewed actually do something about the environment. Of that 15%, only 3% actively try to offset their emissions, while others only admit to making a minor effort at it.

76% of travelers simply don't care, and 9% has "no opinion". Despite all the efforts to change the public awareness of CO2 emissions, only a small portion of people actually care.

This data is interesting, because people are slowly starting to realize that carbon offsets are not going to be the solution to the problem - the real solution is to actually reduce the emissions instead of trying to offset them by planting a couple of trees. Airlines like starting to experiment with bio fuels, and others are making small changes to their flight procedures. Of course, these measures are still in their infancy, but every little bit helps.

(Data from ING Survey)

In this second survey, all respondents were asked how much they'd be willing to pay in order to offset the emissions from their trip. Once again, 75% said they wouldn't want to pay a penny. Oddly enough, 2% said they'd gladly pay more than 150 euro for the idea that they are not impacting the environment when they travel.

Filed under: Ecotourism, Consumer Activism