SouthWings' flights are now carbon neutral!
In July of 2008, SouthWings adopted a strategic plan that included the goal of becoming carbon neutral in order to operate responsibly in an era of climate change. Since our founding in 1996, we have worked to reduce our carbon footprint by matching our volunteer pilots with the closest possible flight partners, reducing en route time. By increasing the regional representation of our volunteer pilot network, we have significantly reduced the carbon footprint of each flight.To reach our goal of carbon neutral flights SouthWings completed an analysis of our 2009 flight data and subsequently purchased 45 tons of carbon offsets from the CarbonFund. These offsets cover the estimated carbon dioxide produced from all of SouthWings’ 2009 flights, including flights in SouthWings’ plane and those taken in our volunteers’ planes. It also includes both flight time en route to meeting flight partners and the actual flight time with partner organizations.
SouthWings is working to reduce our carbon footprint even further. During 2010 SouthWings plans to begin including additional offsets to cover the emissions created by office operations and employee travel.
We are pleased to partner with Carbonfund.org’s CarbonFree program to offset the emissions from each of our flights throughout the year. To learn more about carbon offsets and the offset provider we have selected, please visit www.carbonfund.org.
