So. We all get it: emissions from air travel make a huge impact on an individual's carbon footprint. You can Skype or make more phone calls or in some cases, stream a concert online from the comfort of your desk chair, but sometimes travel over long distances is unavoidable.

Many travel websites and air carriers make it easy to offset the carbon associated with your travel through carbon offsets, but they should be implementing energy efficiency measures in the first place to make the emissions you're generating not so fierce. Some are doing just that.

JetBlue has reported that they are reducing the speed with which a plane flies in order to save fuel--potentially saving you money and saving the amount of fuel burned to get you from point A to point B. This is great--but I have a feeling it's motivated more for reducing the cost of their flights than care for global warming--despite any spin that initiative is getting. Virgin, on the other hand, is taking an even more aggressive stance by saying that they are willing to pay a carbon tax on their air business. Yes. You read this correctly: they are willing to pay a tax voluntarily because they recognize the impact their business offering has on the environment. Pretty rad, if you ask me. Virgin wins again.

Labels: carbon offsets, sarah, travel, Virgin

The line-up at this summer's Virgin Mobile Festival leaves very little to be desired: Bob Dylan, She & Him, Kayne West, The Black Keys, Andrew Bird, Wilco, the list goes on and on and on.

With a dude like Richard Branson at the helm, I was not surprised to find a great roster of greening initiatives as an integral part of the festival.

As we've reported before, many festivals do not encourage refillable water bottles and prefer festival goers to purchase branded water on-site, resulting in mountains of plastic water bottles. Not the case at the Virgin Mobile festival, the website asks festival goers to bring their own bottles and refill them at water stations that are spread all across the festival grounds.

Building on their festival greenings from last year that included running the festival on B99 biodiesel fuel, composting, recycling, and biodegradable food service items, the Virgin team is using clean energy, composting at the nearby Chesterfield Farms Organic Recycling to make sure that all food service waste will have a second life in a local park or garden, and much more.

Check out the super fun website here. See you at the races!

Labels: festivals, sarah, Virgin

Richard Branson rocks my socks off. Just when I think the bar has been adequately raised, I read something like this (photo and copy reposted from Environmental Leader):

Virgin Money is launching a green fund which will invest only in companies committed to high environmental standards. To launch Virgin Climate Change Fund, Virgin teamed up with GLG Partners, who will act as fund advisors, and Trucost PLC, who will provide environmental data. “Consumers are changing the way they spend and are increasingly looking for more environmentally friendly ways of investing their money,” said Richard Branson. According to research from Virgin Money, 29 percent of consumers prefer products and services from environmentally-friendly companies, and 68 percent said if data were available on a company’s carbon footprint, they would pay more attention to the issue.

At least 75 percent of the fund will be invested in an environmentally-filtered basket of European shares, and only companies who have a better than average environmental record in their sector will be selected. Another 15 percent will be invested in companies adopting environment best practice, and 10 percent will be invested in firms specializing in solutions to environmental problems.

The Virgin Climate Change Fund opens for business on January 21 and will be available through IFAs and direct to the public.

This Fund is another initiative in the list of Virgin’s environmental commitment, which includes $3 billion for renewable energy and a partnership to develop ethanol. Last year, Virgin partnered with Boeing to develop planes that use biofuel.

Labels: Environmental Leader, green resources, sarah, Virgin