British Airways launches green initiative
Posted by meb at February 1st, 2008
British Airways (BA) announced yesterday that it is taking fresh steps to intensify its work in limiting civil aviation’s impact on climate change, unveiling a new carbon offset scheme and plans for deforestation projects in Brazil and research non-carbon aircraft emissions.
The upgraded offset scheme uses UN-certified emissions reductions to help finance clean energy projects in developing countries. It is more user-friendly, with customers able to buy their offset in one transaction when booking a flight.
British Secretary for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Hilary Benn welcomed the scheme, saying: “After avoiding and reducing our emissions, offsetting has a role to play in helping us all to tackle climate change. That’s why the [British] government has been working to set up a code of best practice for companies who sell carbon offsetting.”
BA Corporate Responsibility Department head Silla Maizey underlined seriousness of the airline’s commitment to tackle climate change, saying: “We need a broad response to climate change: controlling our emissions with cleaner aircraft, the inclusion of aviation in emissions trading and the setting of tough international emissions targets.” Pointing out that BA was the first airline to offer carbon offsets, she added, “And we intend to remain at the forefront in this area.”
Customers offsetting their flight emissions will be supporting a new wind farm in one of the poorest regions of China, as well as run-of-the-river hydroelectric plants in China and Brazil. They can buy their offset at the same time as they book their flight. The offset cost for a London-Paris roundtrip would be about 1.50 pounds and for London-New York about 16 pounds. BA is the first airline to introduce a voluntary passenger carbon offsetting scheme.
In addition to the offset scheme, BA is to invest in a range of projects to help protect the Brazilian rainforest and improve the understanding of ways to combat one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases. Moreover, the airline will back work led by Cambridge University aimed at establishing robust scientific understanding of the non-carbon dioxide effects of aviation by 2012.
BA has been operating flights from Turkey to the UK for the past 61 years. Today, the airline flies from İstanbul, İzmir, Dalaman and Ankara and from March 10 will operate flights from Antalya.
source: Today’s Zaman
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