Salient air pollution mobilizes bottom-up green engagement: Evidence from the world's largest green mobile program.
7 affiliations
- 1Department of Real Estate and Construction, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China.
- 2Institute for Climate and Carbon Neutrality, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China.
- 3Urban Systems Institute, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China.
- 4Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE), School of Economics, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, Fujian, China.
- 5Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China.
- 6Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
- 7School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
Abstract
Air pollution imposes large health and economic costs worldwide, yet most mitigation efforts still rely primarily on top-down regulation of major emitters. We examine whether salient deterioration in local air quality mobilizes bottom-up engagement with a green digital program. Using user-month panel data on 200,000 users of Ant Forest-the world's largest green mobile program-across 331 Chinese cities from 2019 to 2020, we show that the same individuals respond to severe local pollution by generating more green energy through eligible low-carbon activities, engaging more intensively and more frequently with the program to collect the resulting credits, and redeeming more credits for collaborative tree planting in the following month. The responses are dose-responsive-larger under "Hazardous" (AQI ≥ 300) than "Very Unhealthy" (AQI ≥ 200) conditions-and representative survey data show that pollution exposure raises stated environmental concern. Our findings indicate that digital green programs can help translate heightened environmental concern into measurable green engagement and downstream environmental contributions, complementing top-down regulation.
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BibTeX
@article{an2026salient,
title = {{Salient air pollution mobilizes bottom-up green engagement: Evidence from the world's largest green mobile program.}},
author = {Jiafu An and Jiawen Huang and Chen Lin and Difang Huang},
journal = {PNAS nexus},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag326},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42841112},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Salient air pollution mobilizes bottom-up green engagement: Evidence from the world's largest green mobile program.
AU - Jiafu An
AU - Jiawen Huang
AU - Chen Lin
AU - Difang Huang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/25
JO - PNAS nexus
DO - 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag326
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42841112
AB - Air pollution imposes large health and economic costs worldwide, yet most mitigation efforts still rely primarily on top-down regulation of major emitters. We examine whether salient deterioration in local air quality mobilizes bottom-up engagement with a green digital program. Using user-month panel data on 200,000 users of Ant Forest-the world's largest green mobile program-across 331 Chinese cities from 2019 to 2020, we show that the same individuals respond to severe local pollution by generating more green energy through eligible low-carbon activities, engaging more intensively and more frequently with the program to collect the resulting credits, and redeeming more credits for collaborative tree planting in the following month. The responses are dose-responsive-larger under "Hazardous" (AQI ≥ 300) than "Very Unhealthy" (AQI ≥ 200) conditions-and representative survey data show that pollution exposure raises stated environmental concern. Our findings indicate that digital green programs can help translate heightened environmental concern into measurable green engagement and downstream environmental contributions, complementing top-down regulation.
SN - 2752-6542
ER -