British Airways is set to become the largest carbon removals purchaser in the UK and the largest airline purchaser globally as it enters a new six-year agreement.

Roughly one third of British Airways’ emissions reductions by 2050 will come from carbon removals, with this investment forming part of the airline’s wider sustainability transformation plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 or sooner, which involves a renewed focus on accelerating action to 2030.

The airline will use a variety of schemes including CO2 emissions captured from whisky distilleries and repurposed into building materials, enhanced rock weathering technique that will lock away carbon for thousands of years and reforestation projects.

The airline’s portfolio also includes Canadian carbon capture projects, which focus on carbon removal from rivers and oceans using alkaline rock particles, while in India, the airline is backing a biochar project that empowers female farmers while enhancing soil biodiversity and farm yields.

In 2019, British Airways became part of the first airline group to commit to net-zero emissions by 2050 or sooner. Its 2030 focus includes embedding a culture of sustainability across the business, by introducing new internal carbon reduction targets and launching a new sustainability learning programme, to inform and inspire colleagues and identify further areas of improvement to help drive change.

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