Spring seems to be the time of year we dedicate towards thinking about the environment, from Earth Hour at the end of March (I hope you remembered to turn off your lights for an hour! Seeing New York participate by turning the lights off the Empire State Building was pretty cool), to Earth Day on April 22nd, to Air France celebrating Corporate Sustainability Week and KLM announcing that fish served on-board is in fact sustainable.

One of the (many) things that makes me proud to work for both Air France and KLM is how dedicated they are to their corporate social responsibility. Europeans do have a tradition of being very environmentally focused (have you noticed the proliferation of separated public trashcans for the sorting around Europe?). Both Air France and KLM have been extremely dedicated to sustainability even beyond the environment – in fact we’re proud to be the only airline group to be listed on both Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for the past 6 years (that would be the DJSI Stoxx and DJSI World) and was named “Super Sector Leader” in the wider Travel and Leisure Sector. Just in the past few months we have also won the “Marianne D’Or” award for Corporate Sustainability. Talking about awards can be pretty boring though, so how about I tell you about some of the exciting things we’re doing for the environment (otherwise I could write a novella on everything under the CSR umbrella).
 
Serving Sustainable Fish: because there isn’t any need to deplete our natural resources. So KLM is in the process of phasing out endangered species step by step, starting with our fish served on-board. What’s cool is that we’ve received support from WWF (the environmental group, not wrestling) and the Marine Stewardship Council. So think about how you’re doing your part to save our wildlife the next time you’re eating seafood on-board.

Air France’s First (Transatlantic) Green Flight: close to 6 tons less of CO2. You’re probably asking what we mean by ‘green,’ so I’ll explain. The flight, from Paris to Miami, was the first where all procedures – from taxing to arrival at the parking stand – were optimized to reduce noise and gas emissions. The flight was operated by a B747-400ER and had 436 passengers and 18 crew members on-board. You can watch the video about our special flight below.

Biofuel: the future in travel. In October of last year, KLM was the very first airline to run a passenger flight powered with biofuel. The aircraft, a B747, runs on a 50% biokeresene mix. The flight, filled with passengers, circled for an hour before landing at Schiphol and proving that biofuel is technically feasible option. So don’t be surprised when we’re the first to operate regular flights with biofuel.

CO2 Calculators: making sure that offsetting your own travel is so easy an adult could do it. Both Air France and KLM have CO2 calculators available so that you can easily figure out how much CO2 has been produced by your travel, with separate programs where you can donate to offset your own travel. Air France is partnered with the GoodPlanet Association, where your donation will help save hectares of forest in Madagascar while KLM’s calculator invests in CO2 reduction projects approved by the World Wide Fund for Nature.

I could go on and on (really), but I’ll finish with our combined AF-KL Climate Action Plan to explain our ideological goals regarding the environment:
We support the Kyoto Protocol and the efforts to reach a  new deal in Copenhagen. We take part in initiatives aimed at ensuring a fair contribution of the aviation sector to collective efforts, which is based on a global approach adapted to the development level of each country (Kyoto Protocol) and on the fair treatment of airlines (Chicago Convention).

We continue to renew our aircraft fleet and support aviation research on improving energy efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions.

We promote research programs for renewable energy sources such as sustainable  biofuels for aviation

We support NGO environmental protection programs.

We provide our customers with transparent and reliable information on their CO2 emissions and opportunities to compensate them.

And, just in case you’re wondering, we do in fact offset our own employees’ travel.