Air transport connects people, countries and cultures around the world. Its economic importance is enormous, it drives employment and it ensures the fast and reliable flow of goods. At the same time, it has undesirable effects on climate and the environment. The Lufthansa Group takes its responsibility for effective climate protection seriously - with a clearly defined path toward CO2 neutrality.

Destination sustainability: Into the future with a clear strategy

The Lufthansa Group has set itself ambitious climate protection goals and aims to achieve a neutral CO₂ balance by 2050. Already by 2030, the Lufthansa Group wants to halve its net CO₂ emissions compared to 2019 through reduction and compensation measures. The reduction roadmap until 2030 was validated by the independent Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) in August 2022. The Lufthansa Group was the first airline group in Europe with a science-based CO₂ reduction target in line with the goals of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

For effective climate protection, the Lufthansa Group is focusing in particular on accelerated fleet modernization, the use of Sustainable Aviation Fuels, the continuous optimization of flight operations, and offers for its private travelers and corporate customers to make a flight or the transport of cargo more sustainable. In addition, the Lufthansa Group has been actively supporting global climate and weather research for many years.

The Lufthansa Group continuously invests in a modern and particularly fuel-efficient fleet. By the end of this decade, around 200 fuel-efficient aircraft are to be delivered to the airlines of the Lufthansa Group. Latest-generation aircraft require up to 30 percent less fuel than their respective predecessors and emit correspondingly less CO2.

At the same time, efficient concepts for take-off and landing are being implemented and the digitization of approach technologies advances.

Through targeted cooperations, the Lufthansa Group is vigorously advancing key technologies for the production of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF). The focus is on SAF based on biogenic waste materials, renewable electrical energy (Power-to-Liquid – PtL) and sunlight (Sun-to-Liquid, StL).

The Lufthansa Group secured SAF for a quarter of a billion US-Dollars in order to be able to meet the foreseeable increase in demand in the coming years.

The Lufthansa Group is further expanding its portfolio of sustainable travel offers and is the world's first airline group to offer a new product for more climate-friendly flying since February 15, 2023: The Green Fares.

The Green Fares will make it possible to fly more sustainably with just one click, as the new fares already include offsetting of flight-related CO₂ emissions. This is achieved by using 20 percent Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) and 80 percent by contributing to high-quality climate protection projects. The Green Fares also offer additional status miles and a free rebooking option.

Lufthansa Cargo customers can opt for a more sustainable transport of their freight. In addition to the use of Sustainable Aviation Fuel, the company also offers certified offsetting projects. The add-on service "Sustainable Choice" is available on all routes with a freighter segment, for all product groups and all customers worldwide.

The Lufthansa Group itself has been offsetting the CO2 emissions of employees’ business flights since 2019.

Like no other airline group worldwide, the Lufthansa Group focuses on linking the modes of transport. The Lufthansa Group airlines are continuously expanding their cooperations with local rail providers. For example, Lufthansa offers an alternative by rail for every German feeder flight to Frankfurt and currently brings guests from five European countries to one of its hubs by train.

Economic measures to protect the environment are vitally important as long as sustainable propulsion technologies are not in place and Sustainable Aviation Fuel is not available in sufficient quantities.

The Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), which was concluded with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in October 2016, has offset growth-related CO₂ emissions in international air traffic by the purchase of certificates since 2021. CORSIA is designed to offset all residual emissions from the aviation sector that exceed the carbon emissions of the base year 2019, as defined by the ICAO.

The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) for air traffic has managed and limited CO₂ emissions by way of certificate trading since 2012. All flights carried out by the Lufthansa Group within the European Economic Area (EEA) are subject to this system. The emissions trading schemes of Switzerland (CH ETS, since January 2020) and the United Kingdom (UK ETS, since January 2021) for flights between the EEA and Switzerland and the United Kingdom impose additional obligations to surrender emission allowances.

In 2022, 24 fuel-saving projects were under way across the Lufthansa Group. These projects comprise activities relating to performance and procedures, weight reduction, flight route optimization and technical developments. Another 33 thousand tonnes of CO₂ emissions were permanently eliminated in 2022. The quantity of kerosene saved amounted to around 10.5 thousand tonnes – this is equivalent to approximately 127 return flights between Munich and New York with an Airbus A350-900 aircraft.

 

Specific fuel consumption 2022: 3.59 liters per 100 passenger kilometers

In 2022, the aircraft of the passenger fleets needed 3.59 liters of kerosene on average to transport one passenger over a distance of 100 kilometers (2021: 4.05 l/100 pkm). Since 1994, the Group has been able to reduce specific fuel consumption by as much as 30 percent.

1 Definitions of traffic areas:
Long-haul more than 3,000 km; Medium-haul 800 to 3,000 km; Short-haul under 800 km.

The efficiency values of the individual Group Airlines can be found in Fact Sheet Sustainability 2022.

Energy and Resource Management

Making economically and ecologically efficient use of energy and resources is of decisive importance in all business segments across the Lufthansa Group. In addition to meeting legal requirements, it is important for the Group to identify sustainable potentials for the sparing use of electricity and water, and to develop corresponding solutions. Equally important are measures to reduce and recycle waste materials. Another essential approach on the ground is to implement energy-saving and resource-conserving measures in planning, modernizing and constructing buildings.

Since 2020, the Lufthansa Group has exclusively been purchasing green electricity in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium. To this end, Lufthansa has acquired green power certificates, which guarantee the production of green electricity from new power plants, thus contributing to the expansion of renewable energy. As a further measure, the Lufthansa Group aims to reach CO2-neutral mobility on the ground in its home markets by 2030.