Sir Richard Branson's green claims are running on hot air

Branson's stunts have earned him a green repuatation. Yet Virgin Atlantic's emissions are higher than most nations in Africa

Fred Pearce
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 27 August 2009 11.00 BST
Sir Richard Branson has somehow over the years persuaded us that he and his Virgin empire are green, or at any rate greener than their rivals. One green website calls him an eco-entrepreneur. The Huffington Post advises us to "follow Richard Branson's green example" Even the Sunday Times was at it recently.
This is weird. Branson doesn't do greenwash advertising so much as headline-earning stunts and initiatives that build the aura of a cool, progressive, green guy.
A cynic would say that his $25m Virgin Earth Challenge prize for a new low-carbon technology is worth the price in free editorial. Equally, Branson's initiative on biofuels for aircraft, while slightly tarnished by the declining green credentials of biofuels, also grabbed headlines for what does not, as yet, amount to very much.
Others, including the investigative journalist Tom Bower, have tried to grapple with the business ethics of the Branson brand. So I will stick with the "how green is Branson?" question.
For a start, there is the little matter of his plans to develop space tourism with Virgin Galactic.
According to Virgin Galactic's president Will Whitehorn, every passenger's promised two minutes on the edge of space will produce roughly the same carbon dioxide emissions as ten hours of transatlantic flight. So it is hardly an advert for greener living – even if the New Mexico terminal has the promised solar panels.
More to the point is Branson's airline, Virgin Atlantic. It's not the biggest in the world. Its website says its carbon dioxide emissions are currently approaching 4.8m tonnes. This is up from 4.2m tonnes five years ago, but still way behind British Airways' 17m tonnes.
Virgin Atlantic has a "flight plan in place to reduce our impact on the environment". But this does not include cutting emissions. It means a "30% improvement in the fuel efficiency of our fleet between 2007 and 2020". Which of course would be neutralised by a 30% increase in flights, something that, on recent trends, is likely to be an underestimate.
Perhaps the most surprising comparison is with Ryanair, Europe's largest low-cost airline. Ryanair has a bad environmental reputation, largely because its boss, Michael O'Leary, is fond of taking crude pot-shots at environmentalists, who he dubs "eco-nutters". No Branson, he. But in a head-to-head you may be surprised who comes out top.
The airline industry's indicator of choice is how much carbon dioxide its flights emit for every passenger-kilometre flown. A couple of weeks ago I criticised another low-cost airline Easyjet here for misusing this data in a false comparison with driving a car. The claim is still on its website, incidentally.
The stat may be misused, but it remains a reasonable measure for comparing airlines. So I checked out how some of Britain's leading airlines fared on this analysis.
British Airways is bad. Hobbled by an ageing fleet of polluting aircraft, it until recently produced 143g of carbon dioxide for every passenger-kilometre, though the company now claims to have got that figure down to 111g. Down there with BA is Virgin Atlantic with a reported 130g.
But it turns out that the budget airlines, with their newer fleets and policy of filling up their aircraft at all costs, boast significantly lower emissions. Easyjet weighs in at 97.5g. And Ryanair tops the green list with 96g.
Who'd have thought it? On this measure, Michael O'Leary is the green flier and Branson is the polluter.
Nothing is quite so simple, of course. Ryanair keeps that figure down by selling any spare seats on its flights at rock bottom prices. It is encouraging cheap-and cheerful weekend-break flights that would not otherwise have happened.
But with Virgin Atlantic's CO2 emissions now above those of most nations in Africa, we can do with a bit less of the greenwash from its flamboyant boss.
Maybe he should go back to the balloons. That way we at least know he is running on hot air.