Original title: Green Hearts, Sticky Portfolios: The Gen Z Biodiversity Disclosure Paradox—An Experimental SAP–LAP Perspective
Young adults in Egypt chose how to divide a pretend investment between a higher-return company and a lower-return option. Some were told that the higher-return company’s supply chain contributes to biodiversityThe variety of living things, such as plants, animals, and other organisms. loss, meaning damage to the variety of life. This information made environmental harm more noticeable, but did not significantly change how risky participants thought the company was or how much they invested in it. The study suggests that recognizing ecological harm is different from using it to make financial choices.
Imagine choosing between two snacks, one tastier and one less appealing. You learn that the tastier snack was made in a way that harms wildlife, but that fact does not change how much you think it will cost you or which snack you pick. In this paper, the snacks stand for investment choices, and the wildlife information stands for disclosure about harm to nature. The information made the harm more noticeable, but it did not significantly change the investment choice.
Companies and investors may disclose or receive information about harm to nature, but noticing that harm does not automatically change investment choices. The results suggest that disclosures may need to explain how ecological damage connects to financial consequences if investors are to use the information in financial decisions.
The experiment involved 106 young Generation Z participants in Egypt and used hypothetical portfolio choices. It does not establish how people in other groups or settings would respond, or whether actual investment behavior would change. The authors call for larger, more diverse samples, incentivized decisions, and other disclosure formats.
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Green Hearts, Sticky Portfolios: The Gen Z Biodiversity Disclosure Paradox—An Experimental SAP–LAP Perspective — Yaacob Ibrahim, Hebatallah Abd El Salam Badawy, Hosam Mohamed Ragab Moubarak et al. — Sustainability — doi:10.3390/su181910196
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.