Nairobi/San
Jose, 20 November 2008 - NatureAir, the
world’s first carbon neutral airline, has
joined the Climate Neutral Network (CN Net),
an initiative led by the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP) to promote
global action towards low-carbon economies
and societies.
The company has become
the first in the airline industry to sign
up to the CN Net whose participants - countries,
cities, major international companies, UN
agencies and leading NGOs - have set the
most ambitious greenhouse gas reduction
targets in the world.
“With the airline industry
contributing an estimated three percent
of global greenhouse gas emissions - nearly
as much as the entire African continent,
it is vital that solutions to the climate
change challenge come from within the industry
itself. I welcome NatureAir to the Climate
Neutral Network as a trailblazer on the
path to zero emissions air travel,” said
UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive
Director Achim Steiner.
NatureAir was founded
on the principle that an airline can be
fun, reliable and make a positive impact
on the destinations it serves. Based in
Costa Rica, NatureAir operates in 17 destinations
throughout Costa Rica and Panama. Everyday,
it brings more than 60 percent of its passengers
within 10 kilometers from national parks
or other ecotourism destinations.
Since 2001 the airline
has been experiencing an average 20 percent
growth rate per year, becoming one of the
fastest growing regional airlines in Central
America. In 2008 alone, it transported 140,000
passengers.
“The success of the
company’s performance can be attributed
to numerous factors, including its commitment
to environmental and social responsibility,
its safety record and its reliability with
a region leading 93 percent on-time-performance
record for over four years,” said NatureAir
Founder and CEO Alex E. Khajavi.
It was in 2004 that
Mr. Khajavi and his team made a pledge to
offset all of NatureAir’s carbon emissions
through the protection of tropical forests
in southern Costa Rica. This is made possible
by the purchase of carbon credits from the
government’s pioneering payment for environmental
services scheme.
Costa Rica itself aims
to be climate neutral by 2021 when it celebrates
200 years of independence and was among
the first four countries to join the CN
Net.
NatureAir has improved
fuel efficiency in its flight operations
by seven percent in the last three years
through the use of twin-engine fleet, crew
training, reducing aircraft weight, and
improved flight planning.
Furthermore, NatureAir’s
subsidiary fuel company has successfully
converted the airline’s ground fleet to
biofuels and is working with Costa Rica
government in becoming a biofuel station
for third party companies.
“In an effort to reduce
our carbon footprint, we have found that
sharing our knowledge and lessons learned
is the best way to assist other companies
at improving their sustainability programmes.
With the help of CN Net we can bridge the
gap and encourage more aviation companies
to turn carbon neutral,” Mr. Khajavi said.
Based on a free-of-charge,
interactive website (http://www.unep.org/climateneutral),
the CN Net provides a platform for its participants
to present their strategies in climate neutrality
to the world.
It offers easily searchable
information on increased energy efficiency,
reduced emissions and the use of clean and
renewable energy - relevant to sectors as
diverse as construction, tourism, agrifood,
transport, and information and communication
technologies.
At UNEP:
Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson and Head
of Media,
