British Airways is giving customers the opportunity to buy carbon removal credits and actively help take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
The new carbon removal initiative enhances the airline’s carbon offset options – where corporate and individual passengers can purchase sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) through BA's new carbon mitigation tool or purchase carbon offsets from certified climate projects to offset their flight emissions and reduce their carbon footprint.
But while carbon offset projects avoid, reduce and remove additional carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere, carbon removal projects do just that – they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or the carbon cycle.
Governments, climate scientists and regulators recognise carbon removal projects as a vital step towards tackling climate change, and British Airways currently supports two independently certified carbon removal projects – providing customers with the chance to address their emissions and help accelerate the development of the carbon removal industry.
The Blue Carbon Mangrove Project in the Indus Delta Area of Pakistan supports greenhouse gas removal with the reforestation and revegetation of degraded tidal wetlands. Mangroves and other species introduced into an area of around 225,000 hectares – 2,250 square kilometres or an area roughly twice the size of Los Angeles – will absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through the process of photosynthesis.
The Freres Biochar Project in Oregon, USA, produces biochar – a lightweight and porous carbon-rich residue created from using agricultural and wood waste as fuel in the biomass power production plant. The carbon is locked into the charcoal-like material for centuries preventing CO2 emissions from escaping into the atmosphere. Biochar has many additional uses, is often used in agriculture to aid plant health, and has water purification properties.
British Airways is committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
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