Virgin Atlantic
has signed a memorandum of understanding with a UK company building a new
facility designed to remove a million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
per year as part of the airline’s target to be net zero by 2050.
The carrier
has signed the deal with Storegga which is building a large-scale UK direct air
capture (DAC) facility which will remove emissions from the air for those companies
that find it challenging to decarbonise directly.
Storegga’s
proposed facility, which will be built in north east Scotland, will be the
first large-scale facility of its kind in Europe and is expected to start operations in 2026.
Nick
Cooper, Storegga’s CEO, said, “The need for high quality, permanent, engineered
offsetting is clear. To reach our net zero goals and prevent significant
temperature rises, we need to utilise all the tools available to us. Technical
offsetting with DAC is urgently needed at scale to sit alongside nature-based
offsetting. Last week’s IPCC report is an alarm call to all of us. The quicker
we wake up to this, the better our chances of reaching net zero.”
Juha
Jarvinen, chief commercial officer at Virgin Atlantic, said: “Innovation and
sustainability leadership is firmly in our DNA and we’re excited to be the
first in the aviation industry to partner with Storegga to progress the
development of direct air capture solutions in the UK. Reducing Virgin Atlantic’s
carbon footprint is our number one climate action priority and the removal of
CO2 directly from the atmosphere has the potential to become a powerful tool in
reaching our target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.”