Google Adds Carbon Emission Data to Flight Search Results

Caribbean News…
07 October 2021 8:45pm
Google

Beginning today, Google will display a carbon emissions estimate for nearly every flight in Google Flights search results.

It’s the latest step in the company’s commitment to “help one billion people make more sustainable choices by 2022,” according to Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet. 

Two weeks ago, Google announced two other climate-friendly initiatives related to travel – adding badges in search for hotels that have met certain sustainability standards and joining the Travalyst coalition to help create standards for calculating and displaying carbon emissions for airplanes and hotels. 

Now when users search for flights on Google they will see an estimate of emissions – both for specific flights and specific seats. 

Under the numerical estimate, Google will also indicate if the emissions are higher, lower or in line with the average emissions for that flight route. Users can sort results to bring the greenest flights to the top.

To calculate the estimates, Google is using data provided by the European Environmental Agency and by airlines and other providers about aircraft type, trip distance and seating layout.  

The company says it is also working with airlines including American Airlines and Lufthansa to gather data on how much fuel their planes use on a flight to make the estimations more accurate.

Source: PhocusWire

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