Written on 29^th October 2019

The Lufthansa Group: five airlines, one aim – to create connections worldwide!

Sustainability is one of the main goals of the Lufthansa Group Airlines. Across the company, Lufthansa Group has improved sustainability principles in 6 major dimensions: economic sustainability, corporate governance and compliance, climate and environmental responsibility, social responsibility, product responsibility and corporate citizenship.

In high focus are the topics of climate / environmental responsibility which is why the company is strongly committed to limiting the environmental impact of its business activities to the unavoidable minimum both in the air and on the ground. In 2019, an internal initiative was launched regarding 3 time horizons: 

• Short term: to ensure there are more fuel-efficient aircraft. In the next 10 years, the company will receive on average every 2 weeks 1 new aircraft with CO2 savings up to 25% compared to previous models.
• Medium term: efficient air traffic management / single EU sky
• Long term: complementary use of synthetic fuels, which is expected to enable carbon neutral flying on a large scale in 10 years’ time.

The Lufthansa Group is an industry leader in respect of CSR innovations and proved that by all its initiatives launched in 2019:

• Sustainable flying – the online compensation platform “compensaid” is the first of its kind and helps travelers to replace fossil fuel for their flights with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)
• Synthetic fuel – a letter of intent has been signed by Heide refinery and Lufthansa for the production and acceptance of environmentally friendly synthetic kerosene. 
• All Lufthansa Group business trips are CO2 neutral since 2019
• CO2 compensation integrated directly into the booking process of Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian websites.
• Changemaker challenge – Lufthansa’s first change maker challenge seeks ideas for sustainable innovation in Travel and Mobility. Partnering with the Lufthansa Innovation Hub, Expedia Group, Google and Uber, Lufthansa Group seeks digital and tech solutions to make travel and mobility more sustainable. 
• Plastic reduction on board and Fly Greener initiative aim to minimize on-board waste and increase recycling rate. With the SALSA team (Sustainable Aviation Lufthansa SWISS Austrian), Lufthansa makes on-board and lounge products more sustainable.