Danny ChenPreviously, we have talked about green debit/credit cards. One interesting question is: Can green debit/credit cards encourage individual GHG reduction?
The answer is: It depends.
From the perspective of “measure to improve,” learning about our monthly/annual emissions helps individuals better manage and reduce their emissions.
However, user motivation will be quite tricky when we add on external incentives such as product/service discounts, high savings interest rates, and debit/credit card points.
External incentives will attract a wider audience to engage with the climate movement for the benefits provided.
Accordingly, many startups working in individual climate action use this technique. The design of individual sustainability dashboards is supposed to allow for the easy monitoring of their behaviors. The main problem is: People can trick the monitoring mechanism to lower their GHG emissions without actually taking climate practices. How?
Incomplete information with unlimited ways to avoid the emissions being tracked. People can disclose or make up the climate information only when they need the perk benefits, instead of solving the climate problems.
A simple alternative is for them to pay in cash from street vendors without any receipt records; these transactions are unavailable to monitor and track.
Combining all the discussion, will the green debit/credit card encourage individual GHG reduction? It’s hard to say.
