Virgin Blue Flying Green

Virgin Blue announced on March 21st that it is the first airline to offer a carbon offset program certified by the Australian Government under the Greenhouse Friendly initiative. The program allows the airline and Virgin Blue’s customers the opportunity to neutralize their emissions, thereby decreasing their carbon footprint.

Money collected through the optional offset program will go towards purchasing abatement from projects in Australia and New Zealand.

Virgin Blue Chief Executive, Brett Godfrey said, “As an airline company, we are well aware of the challenge to balance the demand and growth of air travel while at the same time actively working to reduce aircraft emissions. The introduction of this program is a significant step in the right direction and one we hope other airlines will follow.”

“We see our Carbon Offset Program as a step towards creating a sustainable aviation environment. This is a global issue requiring a global response,” continued Godfrey, “and we believe all airlines around the world, not just in Australia, need to view it as a shared responsibility and act swiftly and today’s announcement shows that we are very keen to play our role in this.”

The Virgin Blue Carbon Offset Program:
- Guests will have the option to voluntarily offset their carbon emissions generated during flight by contributing towards approved projects such as forestry activities, energy efficiency measures, waste diversion and recycling/generation of renewable energy.

- Virgin Blue has made a financial commitment to offset emissions generated by their crew and staff while travelling on company business. The annual commitment will go towards abatement projects that are aimed at long term and permanent reduction of GHG emissions.

The airline has also joined 800 other companies in participating in the Australian Greenhouse Challenge Plus Program, to measure, monitor and report on overall emissions with the goal of reducing them every year.

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