How information format, climate attitudes, and trust shape consumer response to food carbon emission information

Consumers often underestimate the carbon emissions associated with their food choices, and carbon-emissions information is increasingly proposed as a way to close this knowledge gap. Yet evidence remains limited regarding how alternative information formats affect intended dietary choices and whether responses vary across consumers. We conduct a randomized online experiment comparing personalized carbon-emissions totals, generic food-category rankings, and their combination. We also examine heterogeneity in treatment effects by climate attitudes and explore whether reported trust and information internalization are associated with these differences. On average, all three formats produce negative estimated effects on projected emissions, with the largest point estimate observed for the ordinal ranking. Effects are highly heterogeneous: individuals with greater concern about climate change reduce projected emissions, whereas those with low concern show little response. Climate-concerned individuals also report greater trust in the personalized information and update their self-assessed emissions more closely toward the displayed estimates. The association between climate attitudes and information internalization is substantially attenuated after accounting for reported trust. Together, our findings demonstrate that responses to carbon-emissions information depend on both the format of the information and consumers' pre-existing climate attitudes, underscoring the importance of clear, credible, and actionable carbon-emissions information and of accounting for heterogeneity in consumer receptiveness when designing information interventions.