Voluntary carbon offsetting among consumers: Part of environmentally sustainable lifestyles or a license to pollute?

Voluntary carbon offsetting (VCO), i.e., financially compensating climate emissions caused by one's actions has provoked critical debate in recent years. The purpose of this study was to examine VCO: do citizens interpret it as part of environmentally sustainable lifestyles or a “license to pollute”? A sample of the Finnish population (N = 998) completed an online survey in June-July 2021. The respondents were asked about the frequency of having engaged in three different VCO practices during the preceding 2-3 years: offsetting emissions from one's air travel, favouring products with a pre-offset carbon footprint, and offsetting personal carbon footprint, as well as a wide range of other environmentally significant practices. The results of hierarchical logistic regression analyses revealed that past engagement in VCO was mostly associated with sustainable consumption practices that aim to reduce emissions. The only exception was past engagement in VCO associated with flying. Based on the results, we conclude that instead of consumers taking advantage of compensation as a “license to pollute”, it may also be an element of lifestyles striving for environmentally sustainability and can thus be interpreted as part of lifestyle political consumerism in many spheres of consumption.