Virgin Atlantic has ambitious plans to decrease its emissions. Yet it also wants more of us to fly in its aeroplanes. Oliver Balch asks if such goals are really compatible

Swiss businessman and pilot Andre Borschberg achieved a first in aviation history earlier this year. For once, it wasn’t about distance or speed. The 7,200km journey from Nagoya in Japan to Kalaeloa airport in Hawaii took nearly five days, a veritable snail’s pace. What set the flight apart was its carbon footprint. Powered solely by the sun, Borschberg’s 2,300kg carbon-fibre Solar Impulse was equipped with 17,000 solar cells. Its carbon emissions were zero. 

For centuries, mankind dreamed of flying. Today, with more than 3 billion passengers flying every year and with global temperatures creeping ever higher, the world is facing a new challenge: low-carbon flying. Global airlines produce around 705m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to 2% of all man-made emissions, according to the Air Transport Action Group. That percentage triples to 6% when considering the UK alone.

Predictions from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) indicate that passenger numbers are going to nearly double over the next two decades, from 3.3bn in 2014 to 7.3bn in 2034. Clearly, if nothing is done, the sector’s contribution to climate change will skyrocket.

Virgin Atlantic, based in Crawley, UK, believes “change is in the air”, to quote its own sustainability strategy. The airline, which was founded by entrepreneur Richard Branson in 1984, is promising to deliver more passenger miles without more greenhouse gases – what has become known in the sustainability trade as “decoupled growth”.

“We’ve got some really ambitious plans for our profitability and growth … but I think [reducing emissions] is absolutely possible,” says Madeleine Cobb, sustainability manager at Virgin Atlantic. To that end, the airline has a long-standing goal of reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by 30% per revenue tonne kilometre by 2020 (against a 2007 baseline). 

Progress has been gradual. Over the past seven years, through various fuel efficiency measures, the company has progressed only one third of the way to its 2020 target. Steps to date include reducing engine use while taxiing, maximising passenger numbers per flight, changing flight plans according to wind patterns and reducing the weight of on-board equipment.

The clock is ticking. “We’re only a third of our way towards the target and probably half way into our target period, so we absolutely have to pick up the pace,” Cobb admits.

Fleet and fuel

All the same, Cobb remains upbeat. Her confidence is based on two main interventions. The first relates to Virgin Atlantic’s fleet. Over the past four years, the airline has spent more than $7bn (£4.5bn) on modernising its aircraft. By the end of this year, it will have nine new Boeing 787s in the air, with eight more coming on stream by 2018.

With its composite carbon fibre structure (most planes are made from aluminium) and various aerodynamic tweaks (such as “raked wingtips” and “hybrid laminar flow control” on the tail), the Boeing 787 is calculated to be around 30% more fuel-efficient that the Airbus 340-600s that they are replacing.

The second of Virgin Atlantic’s initiatives is its investment in sustainable jet fuel. The airline is working closely with US-based biotech firm LanzaTech to develop a second generation biofuel. The potentially breakthrough technology converts waste carbon monoxide from heavy industry into ethanol, which is then converted to jet fuel. Early testing suggests the biofuel could generate up to 60% less carbon emissions than conventional kerosene.

Cobb believes the fuel could be commercially available “within one or two years”, subject to final testing and regulatory approval. For its part, LanzaTech isn’t hanging around. It already has a production facility in the US, and two in China. This July, it announced a major deal with steel giant ArcelorMittal to construct a fourth in Belgium.

“About 10% to 15% of the way to our target will still come from tweaking our operations and fuel efficiency improvements,” says Cobb. “What will take us over the line will be our sustainable fuels, which will make up about 10% of our target.”

Hitting targets enough?

Supposing Virgin Atlantic does cut its carbon footprint by 30% by 2020, is that enough? Environmentalists are in two minds. Any reduction has to be seen as a positive, but many remain queasy about the idea of flying ever more people around the world.

Airlines aren’t blind to such attitudes. Under the umbrella of the IATA, a global trade body, the aviation industry has committed to stabilise net emissions from 2020 onwards through “carbon neutral growth”. By 2050, meanwhile, the IATA has said net aviation carbon emissions will be half what they were in 2005.

Don’t expect Virgin or any of its competitors to dissuade passengers from flying just yet. Air travel is a cut-throat business. Costs are high and margins small. Last year was the first time Virgin posted a profit since 2010, registering a slender £14.4m before tax.

“We don’t encourage people to fly less [and] we don’t have a campaign to fly less”, says Cobb, who says the airline is “pulling out all the stops” to generate ambitious financial returns in the coming years.

Indeed, Virgin is wary of placing any burden on passengers. As a UK carrier, its fares already carry the so-called Air Passenger Duty, a government levy that its international competitors don’t incur. So the rhetoric is all around promoting the consumer experience.

While Virgin follows other airlines in offering a carbon offsetting option (in conjunction with Swiss-based charity Myclimate) and in advising passengers to pack light, it doesn’t want to over-burden its consumers. “Our role is to do the hard work behind the scenes so [passengers] don’t have to think about it [cutting emissions] too much,” says Cobb.

Part of that hard work involves reaching out to others in the airline industry. Virgin has no exclusivity over LanzaTech’s sustainable fuel solution, for instance. Cobb says that Virgin is “happy for others in the industry to share it”.

Working hand-in-hand with its competitors is, as yet, a step too far. A scenario where Virgin and, say, British Airways combined passengers on a single flight rather than fly two half-full planes across the Atlantic is unlikely any time soon. But Virgin does participate with its peers indirectly through membership bodies such as Sustainable Aviation, a pan-industry alliance of the UK’s airlines, airports, aerospace manufacturers and air navigation service providers.

Among the alliance’s contributions is a “CO2 road map” for the UK aviation sector as a whole. The 2012 document calls on the UK government to support R&D both for sustainable fuel and for more efficient aircraft and engine technologies.

An industry-based approach certainly makes sense. While an airline such as Virgin can and must reduce its footprint, many of the big wins will only be realised with systemic change. Take air traffic management on non-domestic routes, for instance. The ability of a single airline to effect change here is close to zero. It requires international, cross-sectoral co-operation.

Policy push

Even so, collaborations still need leaders. Virgin insists it is playing just such a role. On sustainable fuels, for example, Virgin says it is lobbying for jet fuel producers to become subject to the UK government’s Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation. If successful, a percentage of the fuel mix for UK airlines would have to come from sustainable sources.

Virgin would also like to see the UK government use the Green Investment Bank to help project finance the development of commercially viable sustainable fuels. “We feel the UK government is lagging behind and we need these policy incentives to fulfil what we want to do,” Cobb says.

Two substantive tests of the company’s leadership await. The first comes in Paris at the end of November with the start of the UN’s climate change talks. At a general level, Virgin would strongly welcome “long, loud and legal policy signals” to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, Cobb maintains.

The other will play out over the next 12 months or so as plans are put in place to develop a global-based mechanism. Leading on the design of the mechanism, which is due to come into force in 2020, is the International Civil Aviation Organisation. Its main objectives include the recycling of aircraft, next-generation air navigation, sustainable fuels and financing for environmental aviation initiatives and carbon markets.

Cobb hopes the new mechanism will correct the weaknesses of the embattled European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme, which she says failed because of its regional nature and because of the lack of participation by international carriers.

“I think the global solution that we’re going for needs to be fair,” Cobb says. As for what a fair carbon price might be, however, she declines to say at this stage, stating that it’s “too premature”.

Overall, Virgin has a credible story to tell. Investments in a new fleet and in sustainable fuel promise to reduce its own footprint, while its involvement in industry-wide efforts should begin to influence the aviation sector as a whole.

Yet, as with all modern airlines, the company is ultimately bound by a commercial logic that does everything in its powers to get more of us flying. So even though Virgin Group includes a train company, there is precious little vision for transitioning passengers to rail or other lower-impact forms of transport. Likewise, Virgin is among the cheerleaders for a new runway at Heathrow.

The benefits of flying to society and the economy are unquestionable. Perhaps the environmental costs – even if they are a fraction smaller year-on-year – are the price we have to pay. Certainly, the dream of zero-impact flying feels impossibly far away. Even Solar Impulse, with its single seat, is grounded until next year.

Virgin Atlantic: key stats (2014)

Headquarters: Crawley, UK
Fleet: 43 aircraft
Pre-tax profit: £14.4m
Operating profit: £9.4m
Available seat kilometres: 49,461m
Greenhouse gas emissions: 6.4m tonnes of CO2 equivalent
CO2 per passenger/freight tonne: 783g

Virgin Atlantic Sustainability Report 2015

IATA “carbon neutral growth” from 2020 PDF

Sustainable Aviation "CO2 road map" PDF

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