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Climate change - supporting scientific research

Whilst we have a solid understanding of the effect aviations CO2 emissions have on the environment, the climate impact of other emissions such as oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and effects such as contrails is less well understood.

At British Airways, we are committed to improving scientific understanding of what we term non-CO2 effects.

We are also taking steps to aid the development of alternative, more environmentally friendly fuels and aircraft technology.

Find out more

Click the topics below for more information.

 

Scientific research

We are supporting a number of climate change scientific research projects. The research we have supported includes:

  • The European Commission’s IAGOS project (Integration of routine Aircraft measurement into a Global Observing System) which is aimed at measuring atmospheric chemistry.
  • Cambridge University led project to investigate research pathways for improving our understanding of non-CO2 aircraft climate effects.
  • The work of OMEGA, a government formed group to investigate sustainability solutions for aviation. This includes a wide range of environmental topics including climate change.
  • We commissioned research to evaluate metrics for describing the non-CO2 effects of aircraft at altitude. The research found that the commonly used Radiative Forcing Index (RFI) multiplier should not be used to represent these effects. RFI multipliers can overstate aviation's impact because they fail to take account of the varying lengths of time that different emissions remain in the atmosphere. There is a general consensus among the scientific community that the use of RFI multipliers to compare the climate effect of aviation non-CO2 emissions with aviation CO2 emissions is a misapplication of science.
 

Alternative fuels

In July 2008 we announced the start of our scientific test programme with Rolls-Royce to investigate the viability of alternative fuels for the aviation industry.

The in-depth study seeks to identify practical alternatives to the current industry-standard fuel kerosene, with the potential to make real reductions to the carbon footprint of aircraft.

Companies were invited to test their possible alternative fuels on a Rolls-Royce RB211 engine from one of our Boeing 747’s. The tests will be carried out on an indoor engine test bed at the Rolls-Royce facility in Derby, UK.

This follows on from our 2003 sponsorship of research into renewable aircraft fuels when we supported research led by Imperial College London.

 

Research and development

As well as supporting specific research into alternative fuels we have also supported research and development of more environmentally friendly aircraft. This has included:

  • working with engine manufacturers to ensure that fuel-efficient technology is used for new generations of aircraft and engines.
  • working with Rolls-Royce looking into the performance of aero-engines powered by non-fossil based fuels