Lucy Page, assistant professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh, will give the talk, "Got Beef with Beef? Evidence from a Large-Scale Carbon Labeling Experiment," at noon. on Wednesday, Feb. 26, in 157 Hosler Building at Penn State University Park.
"Food systems account for approximately one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, and carbon-footprint labeling is an increasingly common tool to shift consumers towards lower-carbon diets," Page said.
In her talk, Page will discuss results from a randomized field experiment with more than 200,000 customers at a major U.S. food-services company. Page found that carbon labels increase customer retention by 1.1% and company profits by 0.9%, despite reducing customers' carbon footprints by only 0.6%.
"These profit effects suggest that carbon labeling may remain a common sustainability tool, despite its small environmental benefits," Page said. "Moreover, label targeting is crucial: labels may increase footprints among those who do not agree with their purpose."
Page studies environmental economics, focusing on collective action on climate change. She received her doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her bachelor's degree from Williams College. Prior to joining Pitt, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Inclusion Economics at Yale University.
The Initiative for Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy (EEEPI) was established in 2011 with the goal of promoting policy-relevant economics research that lies at the boundary between economic sciences and the study of natural or engineered systems. The EEEPI initiative is focused primarily on the union between energy systems and environmental management and the development of quantitative tools to address decision challenges in these areas. View more information on EEEPI.
