Speaker Lucy Page - Got Beef with Beef? Evidence from a Large-Scale Carbon Labeling Experiment

Abstract: Carbon-footprint labeling has emerged as a prominent tool to shift consumers towards lower-emissions choices, but its effectiveness remains unclear, especially in polarized settings like the US.

We report on the first large-scale evaluation of carbon labeling—a randomized field experiment with over 230,000 customers of a major food company. Carbon-footprint labels yielded modest average emission reductions of 0.6% but caused backlash: customers opposed to environmental nudges increased their dietary emissions.

Despite limited environmental impact, the labels had positive financial returns, increasing customer retention by 1.0% and average customer-week profits by 0.9%. Thus, while climate labels will likely remain a popular sustainability nudge, they have only small environmental benefits and may backfire in polarized settings.