U.K.-based Air Charter Service, which offers fixed-rate, guaranteed availability for both the U.S. and Europe, is revamping its carbon offset strategy.
The new program started the beginning of the month for all its private jet flights. On March 1 it will be available for commercial airliner charters.
It is initially available when booking through Air Charter Service offices across Europe, North America, Africa, and Australia.
The program is optional. When reserving your flight, you let your account manager know, and they will add 0.5% to your charter price.
The Carbon Offsetting Contribution will appear as a separate line on your invoice. That may be handy for companies that want to demonstrate their private travel is carbon neutral.
Your offset contribution goes into an offset fund. Once a quarter, Air Charter Service then goes through a reconciliation process.
The company estimates the carbon emissions of all flights that have been offset versus funds collected. If there is a shortfall, Air Charter Service makes up the difference.
The money is then used to purchase carbon credits via the CTX exchange which are immediately retired.
Customers who have selected to offset their flights will receive notice in which projects were invested.
One current project is Hestian Stoves. The effort has replaced wood-burning stoves in 566,658 homes and 1,239 institutions, also creating over 2,000 jobs.
Air Charter Service is one of the world’s largest brokers. Annual sales are around $700 million and 23,000 charter flights annually.
Justin Bowman, ACS’s Chief Executive, said, “We believe that funding reductions in carbon emissions in industries that have the technology to do so, but not the funds, is the short-term solution, whilst we all work towards the longer-term goal of electric flight – a goal ACS first invested towards achieving as far back as 2014, by helping to fund an electric flight program.”
Air Charter Services says its buildings and company business travel have been carbon neutral.
