BA Better World Report 2025
Our 2025 Progress
We know that flying has a significant impact on the planet and achieving Carbon Net Zero by 2050 or sooner, requires action today to enable long-term transformation.
Against a backdrop of ongoing global challenges and commercial pressures, we remain committed to becoming a more sustainable airline through our BA Better World programme. This means continuing to innovate to drive improvement in our environmental, social and governance performance.
BA Better World builds on our long track record of attention to sustainability in the world of aviation, focusing on where we believe we can make the biggest impact for our business, our customers and for society – People, Planet and Responsible Business. We describe it as our most important journey yet.
At the midpoint of this important decade of delivery, we’ve built the foundations and are now sharpening our focus to ensure tangible progress by 2030 and beyond, whilst forming the vital partnerships that will accelerate innovation and action.
We know we have much more work to do and the challenges are vast, but we’re proud to have made progress throughout 2025, directly tackling the causes of our environmental and social impact and using our influence across innovation, policy and customer engagement to support wider system change.
We reduced our carbon intensity in 2025 by a further 0.2g CO2/pkm, bringing us to 14% reduction in carbon intensity versus 2019.
In 2025, we continued to drive carbon efficiency across the business through multiple initiatives, including through driving operational action, introducing 13 new, more fuel-efficient aircraft and using more SAF.* This helped us reduce our carbon intensity to 82.8g CO2/pkm across all scopes, from 96.3g CO2/pkm in 2019.
We operated with 4.5% sustainable aviation fuels* (SAF) in 2025, a 73% increase versus 2024.
In 2025, we increased our SAF usage, purchasing more than 225,000 tonnes of SAF. This mitigated more than 713,000 tonnes of CO2 in lifecycle emissions that would otherwise have been generated by burning fossil-based jet fuel. Whilst this currently makes up just 4.5% of British Airways’ fuel supply (up from 2.7% and 130,000 tonnes of SAF in 2024), as part of IAG, we’re proud to be part of the largest airline group purchaser globally. It also shows we’re making good progress ahead of the current volumes required by the UK SAF mandate.
We introduced a new way for members of The British Airways Club to earn tier points through purchasing contributions to SAF.
Members of the British Airways Club can now contribute to SAF and earn tier points and Avios when doing so. Members can also use their Avios balance to cover all or part of their SAF contribution. More than 8,000 members have engaged with the platform across all tiers.
We led pioneering work to support the scaling of greenhouse gas removals as part of the UK Government’s Jet Zero Taskforce.
In 2025, British Airways’ Sustainability Director chaired the Greenhouse Gas Removals (GGRs) task group. The GGR task group report outlines three main insights: the UK short-term opportunity for the UK aviation-funded GGRs of up to three million tonnes and the creation of thousands of jobs by 2035, the establishment of an Advanced Market Signal for GGRs through voluntary purchases by major aviation companies, and options for government policy to enable scaling.
We expanded the scope and maintained the certification of our Environmental Management System.
In 2025, we undertook an external re-certification assessment process with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), successfully retaining the Environmental Assessment (IEnvA) certification for our Environmental Management System for Corporate Offices and Facilities, Global Flight Operations, Heathrow Ground Operations and UK Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul (engineering functions). This year, we also expanded our certification to include Ground Handling and Wildlife module standards.
We delivered 76 new sustainability initiatives in 2025, making a total of 126 since 2023.
As part of British Airways’ £7 billion company-wide transformation programme, more than 1,200 modernisation initiatives have been delivered across the business since 2023, of which 126 are sustainability-focused initiatives – from single-use plastic reduction for multiple inflight products, to introducing new more sustainable ground equipment.
We’ve removed 392 tonnes of onboard single-use plastic since 2022
In 2025, we removed an additional 13.7 tonnes of single-use plastic from on board. Since 2022, that totals to 392 tonnes of single-use plastics annually, representing 18% of our baseline.
*2022 baseline: 2113 tonnes
We supported 173 UK-based charities, social enterprise and environmental projects.
Through our BA Better World Community Fund, we support projects and organisations that are working to enrich their communities and support long-term change. In 2025, British Airways directly contributed more than £1 million into the Community Fund, and thanks to the generous donations from customers and the wider public through our Crowdfunder platform, more than £3.5 million was raised in total. This supported principal partners Alzheimer’s Society, British Red Cross, The King’s Trust, The Disasters Emergency Committee and The Earthshot Prize, and more than 100 UK-based charities and projects.
We made further improvements in customer accessibility.
We continue to work to improve our accessibility offerings for customers with disabilities or access requirements by introducing new initiatives and partnerships. In 2025, we launched Hearlo, a mobile app designed to overcome communication barriers for people with speech or hearing disabilities. We also extended the BA Accessibility Advisory Panel, a group of customers with lived experience of disabilities that are providing regular insights to help us shape our accessibility strategy.
We continue to strengthen our approach to fighting illegal wildlife trafficking.
As signatories to the Buckingham Palace Declaration, we’re committed to preventing illegal wildlife trafficking. As well as helping colleagues recognise and report suspected incidents, we partnered with the African Wildlife Foundation to strengthen the Kenya Wildlife Services capacity to detect and deter illegal wildlife trafficking at Nairobi Airport. We sponsored the training and deployment of two contraband detection canines and 21 canine handlers.
2025 Recognition
SEAL Awards 2025
Environmental Initiative – reducing our impact on the ground.
Green Apple Environmental
Awards 2025
Gold – Single-use Plastic Removal.
The Aviation Industry Awards
UK 2025
Diversity in Aviation Award.
The RAD Awards
Use of Technology Award – Speedbird-Z.
Flying is one of humankind’s greatest achievements, bringing people, places and cultures closer in ways that can help shape our world. Our purpose is to connect Britain with the world and the world with Britain, and we’re proud to fly millions of passengers safely each year, creating connections, opportunities and helping people and economies thrive.
We also recognise that aviation has a significant environmental impact. As a hard to abate sector, we have a responsibility not only to acknowledge this challenge, but to lead with ambition, integrity, and action. Sustainability is fundamental to our long-term success and to the trust placed in us by our customers, colleagues and wider society.
Our BA Better World programme reflects a holistic view of sustainability and value creation. Reducing our environmental footprint is essential, and this goes hand-in-hand with delivering positive social impact and upholding the highest standards of governance. It also means ensuring that sustainability is embedded consistently across our business and reflected in our customer and colleague experience. Against a backdrop of ongoing global challenges and commercial pressures, we remain committed to becoming a more sustainable airline through our BA Better World programme.
In 2025, at the midpoint of this decisive decade of delivery, we’ve built the foundations and are proud to share our progress in this report. Highlights include reducing the carbon intensity of our operations by 14% since 2019, operating 4.5% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF),* introducing a ‘SAF for Tier Points’ customer proposition and bespoke SAF sales for corporate customers, helping scale carbon removals, removing a further 13.7 tonnes of single use plastics to reach 18% reduction since 2022, funding 173 social and environmental UK based charities and projects, improving accessibility through innovative stakeholder partnerships and strengthening and recertifying our environmental compliance programme.
BA Better World is turning ambition into delivery and we’re also using our scale to accelerate and influence progress through partnerships with others from suppliers and oneworld alliance partners to UK Jet Zero Taskforce, Flying Start and The Earthshot Prize, with four finalist solutions now deployed.
Our people are central to delivering this change. In 2025, we continued to build a culture of sustainability awareness, strengthening understanding, encouraging open dialogue, and listening carefully to our colleagues. In November 2025 our colleague engagement score on sustainability reached 66%, up from 35% in four years. Across the operation, colleagues are translating our commitments into action – from working to improve efficiency, to reducing waste, through to contributing their time and skills to support our charity partners and communities.
We have made good progress and established a strong foundation, but the transition ahead will require continued focus, innovation, and collaboration. In 2026, we will deepen our work with customers, colleagues, peers and partners to accelerate meaningful change and create long term value – for our business, for society and for the planet. Achieving our goals, and delivering on our purpose, depends on collective action.
What we have achieved so far is significant, but we have more work ahead – to build a more sustainable and resilient future for aviation.
Thank you to everyone who’s contributed so far
– we couldn’t do this without you.
Sean Doyle, Chairman and CEO
Carrie Harris, Director of Sustainability
Working Across All Spheres
We believe we can make meaningful change to society through influencing business products, portfolios, and policies.
Product influence
We’re working to make our customer experience more sustainable, inclusive and accessible. For example:
- reducing single-use plastic on board
- introducing more services and products for customers with disabilities and access requirements
- providing more opportunities for our customers to contribute to our charity partners through our BA Better World Community Fund
Portfolio influence
We’re making investments and purchases to support pioneering solutions and maximise impact. For example:
- working to increase the usage and availability of SAF to reduce aviation lifecycle emissions and improve energy security
- partnering to scale the carbon removal sector
- investing in the UK’s first hydrogen-powered aircraft to have successfully conducted test flights through IAGi Ventures and the IAGi Accelerator programme
- forming new innovation partners with organisations such as The Earthshot Prize
Policy influence
We’re advocating for policies and removal of barriers to enable climate transition. In collaboration with IAG, we work with policy makers who shape new and evolving regulation both in the UK and internationally to ensure that we progress to Carbon Net Zero and deliver for our customers.
Our Track Record
UK emissions trading scheme
We were the first airline to voluntarily participate in the UK emissions trading scheme.
Committing to Net Zero
As part of our parent company IAG, we were the first airline group to commit to Carbon Net Zero emissions by 2050, including a quantified pathway to achieving it. Our commitment is also Scope 3 inclusive, meaning it incorporates our entire value chain.
Committing to SAF
IAG was the first European airline group to commit to 10% SAF by 2030 (a level which is now in line with the UK Government’s SAF Mandate**).
Investing in communities
We’ve supported community initiatives across the UK and around the world for more than 30 years.
We’re working to drive a high-performing, empowering and inclusive culture where every colleague matters.
The aviation industry contributes to global emissions and draws on the earth’s resources for its products and services. We’re holding ourselves accountable and innovating to drive improvement in our environmental performance – from reducing our carbon intensity through to enabling circularity to reduce waste and resource use.
Committed to maintaining the highest standard of corporate governance, driving performance responsibly, and striving to make customer experiences more sustainable and inclusive, we create opportunities in the communities where we operate, while also using our unique skills to support those affected by crisis.
* ‘Sustainable Aviation Fuels’ (‘SAF’) are defined in the Refuel EU Aviation Regulation as aviation fuels that are either synthetic aviation fuels, aviation biofuels or recycled carbon aviation fuels. For further information, see our Planet page.
* *The UK SAF mandate requires that 2% of total fossil jet fuel supplied must be SAF in 2025. This will increase annually, reaching 10% in 2030 and 22% by 2040.
ReFuelEU Aviation sets requirements for aviation fuel suppliers to gradually increase the share of SAF blended into the conventional aviation fuel supplied at EU airports. This includes a 2% share of SAF in EU airports from 2025, and a 70% share of SAF in all EU airports from 2050.