EasyJet will stop offsetting the carbon emissions of its planes as it unveiled a “roadmap to net zero emissions” by 2050, including the introduction of hydrogen-powered jet engines.
Other elements of easyJet’s new strategy include the use of sustainable aviation fuel, more fuel-efficient aircraft and carbon capture to meet the target.
EasyJet insisted it was the most ambitious plan yet by an airline to tackle emissions, while continuing to work with companies to explore new technologies.
The airline signed a three-year deal at the end of 2019 to offset all of its CO2 emissions, a world first and a move that was then said to be costing the airline around £25m a year, but some considered it to be a greenwashing of the environment. damage caused by their passenger aircraft.
Last year, a joint Guardian investigation revealed that major airlines, including easyJet, were using unreliable “ghost” carbon credits to claim their flights were carbon neutral. Under the logic of compensation, CO2 emissions from flying are theoretically canceled out by paying to stop emissions elsewhere, such as from deforestation.
EasyJet said it would no longer pay compensation for bookings made after December. It has not disclosed the sums it ultimately paid for the controversial compensations, but said it “will not invest less” to make flying less polluting and more sustainable.
At a launch event on Monday at easyJet’s Luton Airport headquarters, its partner Rolls-Royce showed off a hydrogen-powered jet engine and said it was “advancing rapidly towards combustion testing of hydrogen on earth”.
EasyJet plans to cut CO2 emissions by 35% by 2035 as part of its new roadmap, and said the steps it was taking had been validated by the Science-Based Targets initiative.
The largest imminent reduction, of about 15% of current emissions, would come through the replacement of the fleet of conventional kerosene-fueled aircraft.
EasyJet has ordered a further 168 A320neos from Airbus, and the manufacturer will also retrofit the existing fleet with technology to optimize flight descent and fuel burn.
easyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren said the plan had a “level of detail and granularity” that set it apart from similar aviation announcements, although the roadmap remained partly reliant on schemes such as modernization of the airspace that require government action that had not been done. next in a decade.
Lundgren added: “Since 2000, over a period of 20 years, we have already reduced our carbon emissions per passenger, per kilometer by a third, so this marks a significant acceleration in our decarbonisation.
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“Today we are the first airline to outline an ambitious roadmap in which zero carbon technology plays a key role in taking us to net zero emissions by 2050 and ultimately to zero emissions of carbon flying across our fleet.”
The airline believes it can cut its own emissions by 78% by 2050, with carbon capture technology enabling it to reach net zero.
Despite distancing himself from the compensation, Lundgren insisted it had been “the right thing to do” but that it was “only a stopgap measure”. He added: “We have always said that we want to transition to technologies that reduce our carbon intensity of our direct operation, that is our key objective.”
The Guardian’s investigation with Unearthed, the research arm of Greenpeace, found that the carbon credits were based on complicated and unreliable hypothetical calculations of avoiding deforestation, which experts warned were not real reductions in emissions The findings were fiercely criticized by Verra, the carbon offset standard that approved the credits.
In another potential step toward zero-emissions flight, Bristol-based Vertical Aerospace announced on Monday that it had achieved the first hover test flight of its VX4 electric aircraft prototype over the weekend.