CATHAY Pacific has introduced a carbon offset program for air freight, powered by a carbon emissions calculator.
The program, Fly Greener, follows the launch of Cathay Pacific’s corporate Sustainable Aviation Fuel program earlier this year.
The corporate SAF program allows companies to reduce their carbon footprints from business travel and air cargo shipments by contributing to the use of sustainable aviation fuel.
The new calculator used by Fly Greener was developed to calculate the carbon emissions of air shipments and the cost of offsetting them to selected carbon offset projects.
Cathay Pacific general manager cargo commercial George Edmunds said the goal of the tool is to help air freight businesses and industry become more sustainable.
“In tandem with our promotion and development of sustainable aviation fuel capabilities, the calculator will give our customers the flexibility to offset their carbon emissions via a suite of accredited carbon offset projects,” he said.
The tool, which applies the latest International Air Transport Association methodology, will display the volume of emissions the offset charge in local currency, calculated by weight, and aircraft type.
Simon Ng, CEO of Cathay Pacific’s digitalisation subsidiary Global Logistic System in Hong Kong, said multiple factors can lead to variance in the number of emissions generated by a booked shipment.
“GLSHK helped refine this system with Cathay Pacific Cargo by using a variety of data sources to calculate the emissions for a shipment including the actual flown route, aircraft type, and actual flying distance to maximise the accuracy of the offset for our customers.”
Cathay Pacific said its offset scheme currently supports projects that supply fuel-efficient cooking stoves to families in Bangladesh, solar-powered hot water to households in India, and solar-powered cooking stoves to families in China.
Chris Bowden, head of cargo global partnerships at Cathay Pacific, said the group is looking forward to promoting sustainable air cargo shipments.
“We know that carbon-offset calculations can be complex and need to be accurate for sustainability auditing purposes,” Mr Bowden said.
“We believe that the ease and simplicity of Fly Greener and the carbon emissions calculator make the rigour and complexity that goes into carbon emissions calculations straightforward and user-friendly, which is something our customers have been actively seeking.”
