How does personalized feedback on carbon emissions impact intended climate action?

Climate change is driven in part by the lifestyle choices individuals make every day, and yet the emissions associated with these choices are difficult for people to conceptualize and seldom considered in daily decision making. Here we examine the impact of personalized feedback on carbon emissions on intended climate action. In a pre-registered between-subjects experiment (N=790), participants first reported their past consumption behaviors in 2019 in domains of food, transportation, housing, and material purchases by using a personal carbon calculator. In the feedback condition, participants received information on their total carbon emissions, a breakdown by consumption domain, a 50% reduction target, and personalized recommendations for reduction. Participants in the control condition did not receive any information. Afterward, all participants indicated their future consumption intentions in 2023. We found that participants in the feedback condition showed a significant emission reduction of 1.42 tCO2e (-12.60%) per capita from 2019 to 2023, whereas those in the control condition increased their emissions by 0.05 tCO2e (+0.045%) per capita. This reduction was found in domains of food, transportation, and material purchases. Importantly, there was no difference in intentions to engage in civic climate action between conditions. Civic climate intentions were instead associated with eco-guilt, climate concern, and climate worry experienced by participants regardless of feedback. These findings suggest personalized feedback on carbon emissions has a great potential to reduce individual carbon footprint without impacting intentions to engage in civic climate action. The study provides useful implications for designing strategies to encourage climate action.