Air Canada gives passengers option to help the environment

Air Canada is offering customers the choice to reduce the environmental impact of their travel in co-operation with Zerofootprint, a not-for-profit organization that operates carbon offset programs.

“Air Canada is committed to giving customers the opportunity to reduce the environmental effects of their travel. We not only want to make it possible for people to make good environmental choices, but we also want to play our part in addressing climate change,” says Charles McKee, vice-president of marketing at Air Canada.

“By working with Zerofootprint, we will make it easy for people to calculate the impact of their journey and mitigate those effects with a small, voluntary additional payment to support environmental projects that reduce greenhouse gases.”

Customers booking travel on Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz or their regional partners through will have an option to purchase a carbon offset for their trip. They will find information about carbon offsets, a calculator to determine the amount of carbon dioxide their trip will generate and the cost to offset it, and an easy way to pay the cost of offsetting their trip either with their ticket purchase or at another time.

For example, based on the specifications of Air Canada’s current aircraft, it will cost $19.20 for a customer to offset their share of carbon emissions on a return flight from Toronto to London and $12.80 for a return flight from Vancouver to Montreal.

“Offsetting makes a real difference to the environment in three important ways,” says Deborah Kaplan, executive director of Zerofootprint. “It balances out climate-changing carbon dioxide that is put into the atmosphere by our activities, it highlights the environmental cost of goods and services we buy, and, when you offset with trees, it restores ecosystems, habitats, watersheds, greens communities and creates jobs.”