Environmentalists have accused Virgin Atlantic of double standards over an initiative to plant trees to compensate for the carbon dioxide emissions from limousines used to drive its customers to airports. Richard Branson’s airline this week said it was ”actively exploring” options such as Carbon Neutral — a controversial programme of planting trees to offset carbon emissions.
Emissions from Virgin’s limousine journeys could amount to a few hundred trees annually. But sustainable transport activists have pointed out that this would be a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of pollution caused by the airline’s fleet of 33 aircraft.
According to the United Kingdom government’s formula, each kilometre travelled by an airline passenger on a long-haul flight accounts for 0,11kg of carbon dioxide. Hence, offsetting Virgin Atlantic’s entire annual flight operation would involve planting 59-million trees.
Steve Hounsham, of the UK environmental pressure group Transport 2000, said: ”For them to focus on the car ride to the airport is missing the point. It is double standards — perhaps what we would call a greenwash.”
A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson said the limousine initiative was merely a part of a wider environmental strategy. ”On any environmental issue, you always look at where the quick wins are,” said the spokesperson.
The practice of planting trees to offset carbon emissions has been criticised by some environmental groups, which say that it takes many years of growth for saplings to compensate for the emissions of a few hours’ flight — and that once trees die, they will release carbon anyway. — Â