FLY LESS

Reduce your plane travel to dramatically cut your carbon pollution.

Flying is a major source of carbon pollution. Not everyone has the privilege of flying, but if you do, taking only essential flights is one of the best ways to dramatically reduce your carbon pollution.

Choosing to fly less can reduce your carbon pollution by up to 50% each year. Even avoiding one long-distance return flight per year could save up to 8.8 tonnes of CO2 – that’s more than the annual emissions of the average UK resident.

Flying less can also show politicians and businesses that people around the world want to find alternatives to carbon-intensive travel. Technology is making some headway here: good news of recent trials using waste plant-oil as a fuel blend to reduce fossil fuels.

Flying less has other benefits too. Less flying can mean less risk of DVT, less exposure to germs, and holidays without the hassle of security queues, uncomfortable seats and long waits.

Travelling for fun

Try looking for locations closer to home. Or if you need to travel, try to use other forms of transport (like trains, ferries and electric vehicles) that get you there with much less carbon pollution. I am looking forward to my postponed family interrailing trip to Europe next year.

Travelling for business

We have all come to realise that we can work remotely and manage to meet online as a result of the Covid pandemic. The climate crisis needs the same level of concern. Consider if your flight can be replaced with a video call. If it needs to be in person, can you take a train? The London/Edinburgh train in particular is 4 hours of zoned-in time you can sit with your laptop. It’s no comparison to flying, and in only good ways. No checking in, no shuffling between different waiting points, no waiting to be allowed to get the laptop out, no Ryanair fights for a seat kerfuffle.

If you really do have to fly as a last resort, go for occasional, longer trips instead and cover more face-to-face or site-based visits in one go.

Offsetting

It’s not the solution but for essential flights it can help mitigate the impacts. We love the Trees for Life accredited scheme but there are many alternatives.