Virginal Green?

‘Virgin Atlantic is committed to reducing its environmental impact by becoming a more efficient business, leading the industry to practical and technical solutions and engaging, inspiring and empowering our staff and customers to help us meet this challenge’. So says the official line from Virgin Atlantic but when sitting in Upper Class or Premium Economy you would not know it. Things would appear as they always have – a Virgin longhaul experience. However looks can be deceiving and whilst a enjoying gin and tonic at 35,000 feet Virgin are trying to become Green or at least as Green as they can.

Whilst the world moves on and a panacea to the Co2 issue for airlines is still some way away Virgin Atlantic have made a commitment to be as environmentally friendly as possible whilst still carrying millions of passengers each year. With direction from the very top they have put in place a number of polices both in the air and on the ground.

They have made the decision to put their planes on a diet – any extraneous weight from the aircraft has now been removed and the search for a fat free diet of lighter materials continues with the goal of one tonne reduction per aircraft this year alone. The aircraft themselves are up for renewal and the much vaunted Boeing 787 dream liner has been ordered with a new squadron of 15 beginning service over the next decade. The dream liner consumes about 27% less fuel than the current A340 fleet helping achieve a target of improving fuel efficiency per revenue tonne kilometre by 30% by 2020.

Other initiatives have been taken such as reducing emissions generated during the taxi-ing phase of the flight, campaigning for a Single European Sky that, by providing more direct air traffic control routings over Europe, would have a dramatic impact on reducing carbon emissions. Virgin of course has given passengers the ability to offset a flight by introducing a Gold Standard Carbon Offset Scheme. The airline has partnered with myclimate to offer the scheme which is available onboard and online, and will benefit projects in India and Indonesia.

Virgin have been busy on the ground and only use renewable sourced electricity at their main ground operations and have set themselves the ambitious target of onsite generation of 100% of electricity for main UK sites by 2020 and reducing energy consumption by 10% by 2020· Virgin Atlantic has a well-established recycling scheme at all office locations and ensure that waste from engineering facilities is disposed of in the appropriate manner.

Perhaps most importantly Virgin are working hard at engaging their client base on the subject of climate change, to empower them to understand what they can do to reduce the impacts of their lifestyle on the environment.

The campaign to draw attention to this policy ahs been helped by the top man. Sir Richard Branson has committed all of his profits from the Virgin Group’s transport interests, including Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Trains, over the next 10 years. The funds will be invested in schemes to develop new renewable technologies, through an investment group called Virgin Fuels.

Along with the other uber green man Al Gore, Branson as set up a $25million prize – The Virgin Earth Challenge – to encourage technological advancements for the good of mankind. The prize will be awarded to the individual or group who is able to remove one billion tonnes of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.