Making meal times more sustainable with Virgin Atlantic
- By Hannah Mahony -
- Aug 15, 2012
Virgin Atlantic have been very busy as of late looking into clever, more sustainable materials to reduce the weight and improve the lifecycle of the products used to serve their in-flight meals.
Using fewer materials on board not only benefits the airline, but the environment too: less weight means less fuel burned, which in turn means less CO2 emitted into the atmosphere.
Just one way in which they’ve shed the surplus weight at meal-times is by reducing the weight of their meal trays, containers, chinaware, glassware and cutlery – even the teaspoon has come down in size.
With the help of specialist agency Giraffe, they’ve also changed some of the materials to more sustainable equivalents. For example, some of the lids for passengers’ meal dishes have been changed from PET (PolyEthylene Terephtalate) to recycled PET, and the acrylic tray changed from acrylic to ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), which are respectively about 65% and 46% more greenhouse gas efficient than those they replaced.
Combined, the new in-flight meal services have delivered an average weight saving of 129kg per aircraft. This equates to a potential fuel saving of 762 tonnes (2,400 tonnes of CO2) a year!
All of the weight and carbon savings were delivered as part of their new Economy and Upper Class food and drink menus, which as well as reducing our environmental impact, provide our passengers with an enhanced on board meal experience!
For more information about Virgin Atlantic’s Change is in the Air sustainability programme, and to download their latest sustainability report, go to www.virgin-atlantic.com/changeisintheair.
By Hannah Mahony. Social engagement executive, Virgin Group Digital. Tweets @hannahmahony
