This table shows that business class travelers on wide-body aircraft may be charged nearly double their fair share of their flight's carbon emissions. 

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Background

A few months ago, SQUAKE and tClara teamed up to analyze the variations between airline carbon emissions models. We found large differences, as reported by BTN Europe here.  A big cause of the variation was due to "cabin multipliers", the factors by which the Economy seat's emissions are increased for tickets using premium cabin seats, e.g., Business Class.

 

A widely accepted multiplier for lie-flat Business Class seats is 4.0 x the flight's Economy seat emissions. This multiplier's value is based on the floor space area needed for seats, and not the weight of the seats, nor the passenger and luggage weights.​

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Is This A Problem?

A flight's fuel consumption depends on the aircraft's mass, not its floor space area. Shouldn't these cabin emissions and their multipliers be based on the cabin's mass (weight) rather than area? And if so, would the cabin multipliers be much different?

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Yes, and yes.  Our new analysis shows why cabin area-based emissions for long-haul flights are significantly overstated for business-class passengers. You can download this Excel-based analysis and plug in your own assumptions to gauge the size of this problem.

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Use Cabin Mass, Not Cabin Area

Our new model shows the logic behind using cabin mass to determine a ticket's proper carbon emissions. Surprisingly, the cabin area footprint is irrelevant once the number of seats in a cabin is found. See this supporting argument.

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The airline emission modelers will need to estimate the average mass of each cabin's seat. Once they have this, the new mass-based calculations are straightforward.

 

The Implications Are Big

Companies that use mostly business class on long-haul flights have reported excess emissions; those using mostly economy class have under-reported.  Booking tools are providing misleading emissions data at the point of sale. Travelers are not making the best carbon-based choices. Internal carbon taxes and carbon budgets are poorly aligned, and vital carbon intensity metrics are miscalculated.

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The Tough Questions

If your company has flown a lot of long-haul flights, will it need to revise its Scope 3.6 emissions reporting?

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If your company uses carbon budgets, carbon taxes, or has set a carbon intensity goal for Scope 3.6 emissions, how much realignment work is ahead?

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If your company displays or provides CO2 estimates for airline flights, what do you tell your customers?

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How long will it take for the airline emission modelers to assess this mass-based approach and decide what to do about it?​

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The Solution

Lobby your airline emissions provider to switch to a mass-based method for allocating emissions between the cabins. The area-based method is nearly 20 years old. It's time to upgrade to a much more accurate and defendable allocation method.