Consumer Environmental Information: Consultation on draft principles for aviation consumer environmental information
Draft Principles of Aviation Consumer Environmental Information
Draft principles
We consider that the environmental information given to consumers on the emissions of their flight should follow the draft principles set out below, so that information is:
- Accessible – environmental information should be easily accessible to all consumers wherever flights within, to or from the UK are advertised or sold.
- Transparent – publishers of environmental data aimed at aviation consumers should publish their methodologies to ensure that it is clear how calculations have been made.
- Accountable and accurate – publishers of environmental information are accountable for the accuracy of the calculations and for ensuring the most accurate, up to date and credible sources of input data are used.
- Specific – environmental information should be calculated using data that is as specific as possible to the passenger’s choice of flight. This means that it should be based on input data that relates specifically to the airline in question (for example, aircraft type, route, seat choice, average load factor, cargo weight proportion etc.). Where specific input data is not available, the most credible alternative data should be used. All sources of input data should be clearly referenced.
- Timely – the environmental information should be updated regularly to reflect any operational changes that may impact any input used in environmental calculations.
- Consistent – the same environmental information should be available wherever flights are advertised or sold. Airlines should seek to ensure that, where they publish environmental information related to a flight, that the same information is also available wherever else those flights are advertised and sold. Where third parties publish environmental information related to a flight, they should seek to ensure that it is (as a minimum) aligned with information provided by airlines.
- Standardised – the publishers of environmental information should meet minimum standards for measuring and reporting environmental data to ensure consistency and comparability between different airlines and flight options.
- Comparable – environmental information (when using a metric) should be shown using standard metrics – kg CO2 or kg CO2e per passenger journey.
- Subject to continuous improvement – publishers of environmental information should consider how publishing that information could encourage improvements to aviation sustainability performance and build in mechanisms to measure consumer impacts of publishing this information and enable this information to form part of business improvement decisions.