Breath of fresh air in airline industry
by Alexandra Lopez-Pachec
Reposted from the Financial Post · Aug. 11, 2011
Company name: Harbour Air Ltd.
Headquarters: Richmond, B.C.
Market: BC
Industry: Transportation
The challenge: Harbour Air's employees are strong believers in corporate environmental responsibility, so back in 2006 a group of them got together and approached the airline's executive team with a proposal: Make Harbour Air, which with more than 50 aircraft is the largest all-seaplane company in the world, carbon neutral.
"It was something we instantly embraced because it was a win-win situation," says Greg McDougall, the company's CEO. "We couldn't see anything negative about being able to be environmentally responsible, have our employees feel good about it and be a leader in the field."
There was one caveat: If the company was going to pursue going carbon neutral, it had to be real. Neither Harbour Air's executive nor employees had any interest in tokenism. "It was very early on in the carbon offset program," says Mr. McDougall. "In those days there were claims that if you paid money into a fund, they'd plant trees somewhere and that would offset your carbon burn. For me, that wasn't verifiable enough."
The approach: "We needed to be able to point to something tangible and know that without our contributions, that particular program would not have gone forward in enabling the carbon reduction," says Mr. McDougall. The company looked for a highly credible organization to ally with in its goals to be carbon neutral. It chose BC-based Offsetters, which was founded in 2005 by Dr. James Tansey, a respected University of British Columbia professor with expertise in sustainability.
Implementation: Harbour Air was at an advantage over major airlines because it has a fleet of smaller, efficient planes. "So we could offset our carbon burn at a very low cost to the customer — 40 to 50 cents per ticket," says Mr. McDougall. "We were able to make it mandatory whereas with a larger airline, they have an optional offset because the cost per ticket is much higher."
Next, the company looked at its corporate footprint. "We had to have that audited so anything we were doing corporately that had carbon burn, we could offset. That's over and above what we do in terms of what we charge the customer," says Mr. McDougall. "In order to be 100% carbon neutral, we also had to do it corporately."
It took the company about a year to develop and implement the program and in late 2007, Harbour Air became the first airline in North America — and possibly the world — to be carbon neutral.
The payoff: Since October 2007, Harbour Air has offset more than 30,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions through such tangible and verifiable projects as Sunselect Aldergrove Greenhouse, which used carbon offset funds to switch from a natural gas boiler to a biomass boiler for its heating needs; the Fredericton Region Solid Waste Commission (FRSWC) Landfill, which used offset funds to install the technology to capture and flare landfill gas emissions; and the Delta View Habilitation Centre, which replaced a conventional gas and electric heating, ventilation and air conditioning system with a clean energy one.
"The fact that we're carbon neutral reinforces awareness within the company that environmental responsibility is one of our corporate ideals," says Mr. McDougall. As a result, the company has numerous other initiatives to reduce its environmental footprint, including using only Forest Stewardship Council-approved print material and increased insulation and other upgrades at its facilities to ensure greater energy efficiency.
"In a perfect world, no one would release carbon into the environment in the first place," says Mr. McDougall, but in the real world going carbon neutral is a realistic and tangible way to do the right thing. "We've built this company on that value, doing the right thing, and sometimes the right thing is practical and sometimes it's not so practical but we still try to do the right thing," he says. "It's something our employees feel good about because they work for a company that is environmentally responsible, we're leaders in the field and also there are customers who use us over the competition for the very reason that we are carbon neutral — but the main thing is that it's the right thing to do."