BA Better World – it’s been a year…

Last September, British Airways made a further commitment to put sustainability at the heart of our business as we launched the BA Better World programme to an audience of global stakeholders and media at a hangar at Heathrow, building on a long track record of leadership in aviation sustainability. That day remains an absolute highpoint and one of the most exciting and rewarding days of my career so far as we stood in front of one of our A320 aircraft freshly painted in our new sustainability colours. But, of course, it was really just the beginning of a long programme to transform our business. We said it was our most important journey yet and that remains true.

Today, reflecting on what we’ve achieved since the launch, I’m delighted and humbled by the way colleagues across the business have embraced the programme, run with it, and made it their own. When I also consider the challenges that my team, our business, and the aviation industry have faced during that time, as we’ve emerged from the worst crisis in our history, I’m in awe.

Our first step when we launched the programme last September was to communicate our strategy across all three elements of BA Better World – People, Planet and Responsible Business and raise awareness of what the programme was about. Now we’re embedding it in every part of the business, putting plans in place in each division to ensure we are all delivering against our goals.

There are so many fantastic achievements both big and small over the last year, but some particular highlights for me include:

People: we’re working hard to ensure we’re a diverse and inclusive company.

-?????????We’ve recently established a reverse mentoring programme, with senior leaders being mentored by a colleague from a diverse background to talk about their lived experience within our business, their career development, and our organisational culture to help us ensure that we’re more innovative, creative and successful. The feedback so far has been really positive and we’re looking to build on that

-?????????We’ve also launched wellbeing roadshows, which have delivered more than 650 colleague health checks and raised awareness across physical and mental wellbeing themes

-?????????We’ve established a menopause support programme, funding professional advice and support for colleagues and seen the colleague driven MenoFriends network come to life

-?????????And we’ve created a network of mental health first aiders to support colleagues and their families if they need it

Planet: we’re focussed on tackling food waste, reducing single use plastics and taking urgent action to tackle our climate impacts.

-?????????In April we took in our first ever supply of UK-produced sustainable aviation fuel (made from waste cooking oil). It’s now routinely delivered into Heathrow operations, so all BA flights leaving Heathrow now fly using a small proportion of SAF, and we’re working on scaling up the development of SAF through several partnerships. In November, when the US lifted travel restrictions, we flew to New York on the first ever commercial transatlantic flight operating on 35 per cent SAF, which was pretty amazing

-?????????I also had the opportunity to visit Squamish, Canada, in February to explore how we can utilise carbon removal technology to help mitigate the impact of our emissions and I’m excited at seeing this new technology evolve into something that can be truly vital to the future health of our planet

Responsible business: we’re actively supporting communities around the world and engaging customers in our sustainability programme.

-?????????We launched our new BA Better World Community Fund in March to support projects in communities across the UK, which has already delivered more than ￡760,000 of funding to support?30+ charities across the UK. These non-profit organisations are delivering positive change that align with our BA Better World values across social inclusion, access to education and employment, environmental protection and climate action and community support in times of crisis. The projects are so inspiring and the changes they are driving are vital – particular favourites include Fantasy Wings, Energy Garden and Global Grooves

-?????????We’ve sent aid and supported emergency responses in India, Ukraine and most recently Pakistan – connecting communities, employees and doing the right thing when it’s needed in times of crisis by utilising our unique position as an airline

-?????????We’ve been empowering our customers to make sustainable choices when they fly with us – with our customers now able to offset the emissions from their flight or purchase sustainable aviation fuel directly from their seat on board (in addition to before or after their flight) and we’re introducing new innovative and more engaging and easy-to-use channels to inform and increase participation by customers.

Positioning sustainability at the heart of our corporate strategy to deliver transformational change is a huge challenge, but its also a privilege to have the platform that British Airways provides to tell our BA Better World story. Over the last year I’ve been able to share our vision and plans through various media interviews, podcasts, at events and conferences including at the Farnborough Air Show and the House of Commons as well as with our colleagues internally.

I’m inspired and energised to see colleagues and customers from all over the world engage with us on sustainability – approaching us with positive feedback on what we’re doing – and constructive challenge - as well as sharing new ideas and innovations to help us on our journey. Often it’s just a note to tell me they spotted our BA Better World plane.

It’s also great to see the action taken across our airline group with Iberia, Vueling and Aer Lingus all also driving significant action on sustainability and IAG continuing to invest in SAF and champion global sectoral action across the airline industry.?Our industry partners, regulators and competitors are all in action too, building momentum and driving investment and large structural change so we can collectively deliver our shared vision of a sustainable future for aviation.

So, lots of positives, but there’s no room for complacency.

We’re making progress, but we know there’s much, much more to do. And there’s still something that keeps me awake at night.

Despite the progress we’re all making – governments, corporates and individuals – we must do more and move faster. Looking at recent global events from wildfires in Australia to the devastating floods in Pakistan, and hitting 40 degrees here in the UK, it’s clear that climate change is here.

Having worked in sustainability for 25 years, I’m delighted to finally see that sustainability is getting more and more traction, but we need to pick up more momentum given the pace and scale of the climate crisis.

Despite the immensity of the challenge and the complexity of the solutions, we simply must be bolder and move faster. Like all sectors, tackling climate change and finding scale solutions for aviation to decarbonise is not a choice. It’s a necessity.

As an airline, we can’t change the way we operate overnight, it will take time and it’s not easy. But we are now seeing the nascent technology solutions become available that are beginning to be scaled to build a future aviation industry without the climate impacts. It’s vital that action is about what are we doing today. Because tomorrow is too late.

I’m honoured to lead our BA Better World programme and to work with outstanding people across BA who are, day by day, making changes to be more sustainable and to have the opportunity to engage, and hopefully occasionally inspire, some of our 30,000 colleagues and tens of millions of customers in their own sustainability efforts. All of this is help drive change for our airline that has, and can continue to, set the benchmark for our industry and achieve our vision for BA Better World.??