Embraer Embraces Green

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Embraer is offering customers a carbon offset program that will help reforest Brazil at a cost of a few dollars an hour in operating costs. The company announced its new program at EBACE 2008 on Monday and says it will take care of mitigating the already-small carbon impact of its aircraft on behalf of customers who sign up to pay the additional three-to-five percent premium on the direct operating costs of their aircraft. Embraer spokesman Graciliano Campoz told AVweb in a podcast interview that none of the carbon offset money will come to Embraer but the company will monitor and audit the recipients to ensure the money truly does offset the carbon footprint of the aircraft operations.

Campoz said reforestation projects in Brazil are an obvious target for the funds because of the homegrown interest and the relative ease of monitoring them but other worthy projects will also be considered. The company has also adopted programs in its plants and practices to minimize their environmental impact. Campoz also noted that there’s only so much a manufacturer can do and real mitigation of aviation’s already-small impact on the environment will come from operational changes (more direct routing and more efficient flight profiles) that only airspace modernization can bring. He also said the virtually emission-free fuels of the future will come from the distillation of biomass and coal into turbine-compatible fuels.

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