British Airways has signed a deal to purchase more than £9 million worth of innovative carbon removals credits in the United Kingdom and overseas as part of a 6-year agreement. The deal is part of an ambitious drive to accelerate the airline’s climate change efforts between now and 2030.
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One ground-breaking scheme in Scotland will see CO2 emissions captured from whisky distilleries and repurposed into building materials. Another, spread across multiple locations in the UK, uses an enhanced rock weathering technique to lock away carbon for thousands of years. The airline will also purchase carbon removals credits from two companies specialising in high-durability reforestation projects, increasing the amount of forested land in Scotland and Wales.
The airline’s portfolio also includes Canadian carbon capture projects, which focus on carbon removal from rivers and oceans using alkaline rock particles, while in India, the airline is backing a biochar project that empowers female farmers while enhancing soil biodiversity and farm yields.
British Airways joined forces with CUR8, a UK-based company that specialises in sourcing high quality carbon removals credits. The airline has purchased 33,000 tonnes of carbon removal credits through its CUR8 portfolio, a small but important step to help scale-up and advance this critical sector. Carbon removals are recognised by scientists, governments and regulators as a vital tool in helping to address climate change, but the sector needs to be scaled up urgently.
In 2019, British Airways became part of the first airline group to commit to net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner. Its 2030 focus includes embedding a culture of sustainability across the business, by introducing new internal carbon reduction targets and launching a new sustainability learning programme, to inform and inspire colleagues and identify further areas of improvement to help drive change.
In addition to the partnerships facilitated by CUR8, British Airways has also purchased a small number of carbon removal credits from Climeworks, which operates the world’s two largest Direct Air Capture plants in Iceland, with plans to expand internationally, and 1PointFive, a US-based company that is developing a Direct Air Capture plant in Texas.
Roughly one third of British Airways’ emissions reductions by 2050 will come from robust carbon reductions and removals in other sectors, and the airline has been supporting research and innovation to help accelerate the development of cutting-edge solutions since 2019.