British Airways’ new carbon offsetting scheme goes live today. The scheme sees all of the airline’s domestic flights becoming carbon neutral. Air France’s similar scheme also goes live today.

Carbon offsetting is becoming a hot topic as airlines look to be accountable for their emissions. In fact, despite being accountable for just 2.5% of global emissions, aviation has become the emissions scapegoat. However, the airline industry is taking this seriously, especially when it comes to shorter journeys that may not be necessary, such as the United Kingdom’s domestic flights. This is wher carbon offsetting kicks in.

What is carbon offsetting?

In a nutshell, carbon offsetting is the process of offsetting carbon. However, this doesn’t tell us much, so let’s take a more in-depth look. The amount of CO2 emissions given out by a flight largely varies on the aircraft type, length of flight, and weight.

Air France’s carbon offsetting scheme for domestic flights also goes live today. This will see the French flag carrier offsetting all emissions on flights within mainland France. However, beyond the mandatory offsetting of domestic flights, airlines could do much more to make it easier to offset emissions on other flights. While Ryanair allows passengers to offset their emissions during the booking process, many other airlines need you to visit another website. These include Lufthansa and British Airways. Meanwhile, SAS offsets all journeys by its frequent fliers, but won’t allow others to offset flights.