ECO-FRIENDLY FOCUS

Finland’s flagship carrier, Finnair, is getting closer to achieving its long-term goal of carbon neutrality with the release of its 2020-2025 strategy. Sustainability will be a key driver in the new roadmap. The airline already offers its customers a voluntary offsetting service, but is also looking into other voluntary measures, such as investments in carbon sinks – a forest, ocean or other natural environment that can absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The airline also wants to minimise the emissions of its flight operations by investing in new planes, implementing operating measures that improve fuel efficiency and investing in the use of biofuels and, in the longer term, synthetic fuels. The carrier will also work on developing electric flying for shorter distances. The company believes that combining different transportation modes will be another important step towards a carbon-neutral future. “The path towards a long-term target of true net carbon neutrality in aviation is a long and challenging one, but we will proceed towards that goal in a determined manner, step by step,” Finnair’s CEO, Topi Manner, says. “On this journey, we need a transparent and credible process of offsets and emissions trading, while our main focus remains on reducing the emissions from our flights. We will also engage all our partners, customers and other stakeholders in this vigorous work.” Between 2015 and 2019, Finnair invested around two billion euros (AUD$3.2 billion) in a more fuel-efficient long-haul fleet, and this investment has brought significant CO2 emissions reductions in its flight operations. Aviation is already a part of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and has been the first industry in the world to agree on a global carbon offsetting and reduction scheme (CORSIA), which comes into effect at the beginning of 2021. finnair.com/au-en