Climate Conscious Flying? ✈️

Although in the middle of one crisis, another one can’t be forgotten. Forests are burning, cities are flooded, glaciers are shrinking, and coral reefs are dying; see them before they disappear? 

A few years ago, previous generations were bragging about airplane kilometers flown and countries visited, but what once was an achievement has matured to become a controversial matter. We ask ourselves if we should stop flying altogether and feel a sense of guilt when hopping on a plane anyways. Worldwide, aviation alone accounts for around 2.5% of global carbon emissions. Global warming is one of our most significant issues today, and every flight operated makes it worse. Flying is part of our selfish consumption.

The COVID-19 outbreak revealed that the future may see less travel but more Zoom. Nonetheless, there are certain things you just can’t and don’t want to move to an online setting and certain places you can’t get to by public transportation. Flying is a means to an end.

Furthermore, 2020 taught us that the sudden decline in global air travel carried a major silver lining for the environment, though left one of the world’s largest industries, tourism, struggling. 

Digital Nomads and the Environment

Many digital nomads are minimalist with few material possessions, live in small or shared apartments, don’t own cars, and aren’t commuting to work every day. What sounds like a super eco-friendly lifestyle, unfortunately, isn’t the entire story. Sure, not all digital nomads travel intensively on airplanes but prefer slow travel or use other transportation forms. Nevertheless, flying is still part of the way they move and sometimes hard to avoid.

As touched on in my last blog post, we’re a climate-conscious generation and clearly don’t want to harm our planet when taking on a location-independent life. But raised in a globalized world with exchange friends all over and digitalization at the palms of our hands, allowing us to work from anywhere, it is a challenge to stay at home. 

This leaves me wondering, how can we both care about our planet’s destiny and travel around it? Is it even probable to be environmentally conscious flyers?

How can we take on more responsibility?

There are many ways to live a more environmental-friendly life, which you probably already know about. However, I want to address something you can do when not flight-fast completely.

Avoiding short flights, sitting in economy class, taking direct flights, traveling with less luggage, booking with certain airlines, and offsetting carbon emissions produced!

… Offsetting Carbon? ✈️

The idea behind carbon offsets is that individuals (or companies) make financial contributions to schemes that support the reduction of CO2 emissions or boost new sustainable energy projects to compensate for the carbon footprint generated by them. To put it another way, you pay somebody else to make up for your carbon emissions by investing in projects that benefit our climate. 

(Calculate the carbon footprint of a flight here or your lifestyle’s carbon footprint here.)

A quick google search will exhibit the number of websites and airlines with a carbon offset scheme. However, finding the right program among the endless choices is no easy task. Effective carbon offset programs have to meet certain standards to be valid. So before you randomly invest your money in an offset website, you need to ensure yourself that the program is meeting these criteria:

✔️ Is an additional – If the project would have happened regardless of the people donating to offset their carbon footprint it doesn’t create any compensation for your flight. Therefore, you need make sure, that the project wouldn’t been up and running if it wasn’t for the money funded from the carbon offsets.

✔️ Will be permanent – The goal is to keep greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere forever, and that unfortunately isn’t the case with evry single offset project. It is important that the project you invest in won’t be reversed in the future (E.g., for forestry projects: can you guarantee trees will never be cut down?).

✔️ Is only counted once –Once you buy an offset, the acquired emissions reduction shouldn’t be sold to someone else again. Hence, you have to be sure that you have a private claim to the purchased emission reduction. The project must be protected from double issuance, double use, and double claiming of acquired emissions.

✔️ Ensures leakproofness – The worst thing that could happen would be that although the project you invest in reduces emissions in one place, it increases them somewhere else or makes another environmental or even social problem worse. The overall impact of the project has to be evaluated by including all safeguards, and determine that relevant risks are identified, monitored, and reported upon.

Programs sticking to these strict standards while offering absolute transparency can make a genuine difference. Others who are not most definitely don’t create any compensation. There are many scams out there; therefore, investing in a program with third-party verification can make it more reliable.

Personally, these are websites I go with:

Gold Standard. A Swiss non-profit organization and well-known certification body for carbon offset programs founded by the WWF and other international NGOs. Their projects are located in developing countries and combine reducing CO2 with sustainable development to benefit the local communities. 

Atmosfair. A non-profit organization established in Germany. Specifically, they promote sustainable travel and focus on long-term energy transitions across the planet, which is exactly what we’re hoping for. They rely entirely on individuals and companies’ carbon offsets and directly cooperate with the travel industry worldwide to encourage climate protection in this sector.

If you chose to offset specifically your flight, the most suitable option you can pick are projects focusing on supporting renewable energies. This tackles the problem we’re trying to solve (our reliance on fossil fuels). 

Is offsetting worth it?

Clearly, whether you offset it or not, the CO2 emissions of your flight will be released into the atmosphere nevertheless. I don’t want to support the illusion that offsetting simply solves the problem. It is a very valid concern that compensating can be misused as a free pass for inaction and is no more than damage control as well as an easy way to reduce guilt without actually having to change your behavior. 

I’m aware that the best thing to do is not fly. Nevertheless, I want to argue that doing something is still better than doing nothing. And the UN Environment agrees with me moreover supports carbon offsetting as a temporary measure. Clearly, they don’t recommend using offsets to control climate change, and decarbonization is the end goal. Still, offset schemes provide undeniable support to important projects that help combat global warming.

With this in mind, I did and will use carbon offsets as much as possible but will also be working towards living an eco-friendlier lifestyle.

What about you? Have you ever paid for a carbon offset, or do you plan on doing it for your next trip? 

👉🏽 Btw, carbon offsets can also be a salutary gift for your travel enthusiastic friend! Last Christmas, my brother gifted me one for a flight from Zurich to Sarasota, Florida. I was thrilled with it and thought it was such a unique and clever idea!

Read more about it:

• Aviation carbon offsetting – Guidelines for voluntary programs
• Different airlines and their carbon emissions compared