Turn Up The HeatRichard Branson
I managed to extract only one figure from Virgin Atlantic’s press officer: the others, she told me, are “commercially sensitive”. She revealed that the average customer produces, per kilometre, 0.126 kg of carbon dioxide(1). This is interesting, because it means that Virgin Atlantic’s operations are 15% less efficient than the industry average(2). The most likely explanation is that it flies more business class passengers, who take up more space. Its website boasts that “a large increase in the number of business travellers helped to boost profits and achieve record sales in the last financial year.”(3)
The same press release reveals that in financial year 2005/6 the company carried 4.9 million travellers. All its flights are long-haul(4). Let’s assume (this is quite generous to the airline) that its average return journey-length is 12000 km.
This would mean that Virgin Atlantic’s planes produce 7.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. According to the calculations I explain in Heat, the sustainable level of carbon dioxide production per person per year - which we must reach by 2030 - will be 1.2 tonnes. So Virgin Atlantic is responsible for the total annual carbon allocation of 6.2 million people. Carbon dioxide is only part of the story. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the other gases planes emit (mostly water vapour) boost their total climate-changing effect by 2.7 times(5). Branson’s operations are responsible for the sustainable global warming impact of 16.7 million people, or 28% of the population of the United Kingdom.
This is to say nothing of the activities of the other Virgin airlines: Virgin Express, Virgin Blue and - one day - Virgin Galactic. Needless to say, Virgin Atlantic doesn’t intend to stop here. Its three-year growth plan is “aimed at capturing greater business market share, with products tailored towards premium passengers at the heart of the strategy. The airline is targeting an increase of at least 10% in the number of business travellers over the next year.”(6)
So what does Virgin propose to do to stop killing the planet? The student information pack it publishes asks the question “What is Virgin Atlantic Airways’ environmental policy?” The answer is that “Virgin Atlantic has introduced a number of recycling initiatives both on board aircraft and throughout the company’s offices.”(7) It recycles its plastic cups, gives its used printer cartridges to a children’s leukaemia charity and has asked its suppliers of champagne to reduce their cardboard packaging.
On climate change, answer comes there none. The issue isn’t even mentioned. Faced with an overwhelming problem, you ignore it, emphasise your generosity (who could fail to be moved by a gift of used printer cartridges?) and concentrate on an issue which costs you almost nothing to address.
But somehow none of this seems to matter. When British teenagers were polled at the beginning of 2006 about whom they would most like to be, Branson came top of the list(8). Because he dresses like an ageing rock star rather than a businessman; because he has spent almost as much time publicising himself as publicising his companies, he’s managed to create the impression of a swashbuckling, mold-breaking, fun-loving consumer champion, rather than just another corporate fat cat. Well I don’t care what he looks like. I care about what he does. And it seems to me that it’s time we started turning as much heat on him as we have directed at Exxon.
