We have all faced that situation in a restaurant or at a dinner party: our food has arrived but we find ourselves waiting for others at the table to be served before starting. This long-established norm is the subject of new research co-authored by Bayes Business School, that shows we are more concerned about violating this practice ourselves than we are about others doing so.

Abstract

Purpose – This study investigates the causal relationship and mechanisms between the development of digital finance and household carbon emissions. Its objective is to explore how digital finance can influence the carbon footprint at the household level, aiming to contribute to the broader understanding of financial innovations' environmental impacts.

Design/methodology/approach – The research combines macro and micro data, employing input-output analysis to utilize data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) for the years 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019, national input-output tables, and Energy Statistical Yearbooks. This approach calculated CO2 emissions at the household level, including the growth rate of household carbon emissions and per capita emissions. It further integrates the Peking University Digital Financial Inclusion Index of China (PKU-DFIIC) for 2012–2018 and corresponding urban economic data, resulting in panel data for 7,191 households across 151 cities over four years. A fixed effects model was employed to examine the impact of digital finance development on household carbon emissions.

Findings – The findings reveal that digital finance significantly lowers household carbon emissions. Further investigation shows that digital transformation, consumption structure upgrades, and improved household financial literacy enhance the restraining effect of digital finance on carbon emissions. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that this mitigating effect is more pronounced in households during the nurturing phase, those using convenient payment methods, small-scale, and urban households. Sub-index tests suggest that the broadening coverage and deepening usage of digital finance primarily drive its impact on reducing household carbon emissions.

Practical implications – The paper recommends that China should continue to strengthen the layout of digital infrastructure, leverage the advantages of digital finance, promote digital financial education, and facilitate household-level carbon emission management to support the achievement of China's dual carbon goals.

Originality/value – The originality of this paper lies in its detailed examination of the carbon reduction effects of digital finance at the micro (household) level. Unlike previous studies on carbon emissions that focused on absolute emissions, this research investigates the marginal impact of digital finance on relative increases in emissions. This method provides a robust assessment of the net effects of digital finance and offers a novel perspective for examining household carbon reduction measures. The study underscores the importance of considering heterogeneity when formulating targeted policies for households with different characteristics.

"Climate adaptation finance should shift from the quantity of finance to its quality and risk-reducing impacts. The current adaptation finance system will unlikely have the desired impact of reducing climate risks to vulnerable people," says researcher Jasper Verschuur of Delft University of Technology in an article in Science, written with fellow researchers from the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics.

Plastic bag regulations – bans and consumer fees – have led to meaningful reductions in plastic litter on U.S. shorelines, according to a new study. Plastic pollution has become a pervasive environmental issue; plastic debris comprises most of the marine litter worldwide and has been shown to pose serious threats to ocean life, ecosystems, and coastal economies.  Much of this pollution originates from land and enters the ocean via rivers, wastewater, or wind. Among the most problematic items entering marine systems are single-use plastic shopping bags, which has prompted the implementation of a variety of policies – ranging from fees to outright bans – to curb this pollution. Although these policies are being increasingly used worldwide, their effectiveness in reducing plastic waste in the environment remains unknown. To address this gap, Anna Papp and Kimberly Oremus evaluated the effects of plastic bag bans and fees in the United States on the prevalence of plastic bag litter on shorelines. Papp and Oremus analyzed crowdsourced data from more than 45,067 U.S. shoreline cleanups alongside 611 local and state-level plastic bag regulations enacted between 2017 and 2023. By applying robust causal inference methods, the authors found that plastic bag policies led to a 25–47% reduction in the proportion of plastic bags among total litter collected during cleanups compared to locations without such regulations. According to the findings, policies involving consumer fees potentially have the largest impact on reducing litter. While complete bag bans also reduced litter, partial bans, which often allow exceptions for thicker “reusable” bags, appeared to be the least effective. Moreover, the largest reductions in plastic litter occurred in places that had the highest baseline levels of plastic bag pollution, suggesting that these policies are most effective where the problem is most severe. Papp and Oremus also suggest that plastic bag policies may reduce wildlife entanglement by 30 to 37%, though they note that these estimates are imprecise due to data limitations.

A segment of Science's weekly podcast with Anna Papp, related to this research, will be available on the Science.org podcast landing page after the embargo lifts. Reporters are free to make use of the segments for broadcast purposes and/or quote from them – with appropriate attribution (i.e., cite "Science podcast"). Please note that the file itself should not be posted to any other Web site.