New Empirical Evidence: Consumer Support for Environmental Restoration Projects

Why we ran this study

Most travelers say they care about the environment, yet very few take action at the moments where it would count. The booking checkout is one of those moments: a high-intent, high-spend decision point where a small, well-designed ask could turn stated concern into real contributions. We wanted to know whether people would actually give their own money toward forest conservation when offered the chance during a flight purchase, and whether being asked changed how they felt about the platform doing the asking.

How we tested it

Participants completed a realistic flight-booking flow on a simulated online travel agency. At checkout, they were offered an easy, one-tap option to add a reforestation contribution to their purchase. The decision was real: the money was theirs to keep or to give. We then measured who contributed, how the contribution option affected platform preference, and whether it changed participants' stated likelihood of booking again.

Key findings

• 69% of participants contributed their own money toward forest conservation during the experiment.
• 75% preferred the online travel agency that offered an easy-to-use contribution feature at checkout, including participants who chose not to donate.
• A significant number of participants were more likely to book on a platform offering an easy way to contribute, even at higher ticket prices.
• Perceptions of the platform and likelihood of future use were not negatively affected by the presence of the donation option.

Asking customers to give at checkout doesn't cost goodwill. It builds it, even among those who decline.

What this means for implementation

Reforestation contributions can be implemented quickly and at negligible cost:

• Integration requires only a basic change to the checkout and payment workflow. No new infrastructure is needed.
• Rainforest Trust is already equipped to accept contributions from partner platforms.
• Real-world participation will likely fall below the 69% we observed, since stated values tend to outrun actual behavior. Even so, a 5% opt-in rate at the scale of online travel booking generates significant conservation impact.

Related work

This study established that travelers will give at checkout. Our subsequent airline experiments asked how the design of that ask changes behavior — across three booking flows, imagery, suggested amounts, and concrete impact statements materially moved both participation and amount. See Redesigning the In-Booking Donation Flow.

Open data

The full dataset and materials are available on the Open Science Framework: osf.io/8yk2a.