The International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the Oneworld Alliance will work together in the field of CO2 emission calculations, with all 13 Oneworld member airlines committing to contributing operational data to IATA’s CO2 Connect emissions calculator.

This will further improve the quality and accuracy of the tool, according to an announcement, as the percentage of airline-specific fuel burn data used by the calculator will substantially increase, with the data provided by the following Oneworld member airlines: Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, Qantas, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, and SriLankan Airlines.

Marie Owens Thomsen, senior vice president, sustainability and chief economist, said travelers want to make informed choices regarding their CO2 footprint, and IATA CO2 Connect set out to provide CO2 emission calculations based on operational data. She said the decision by Oneworld “underscores the importance of the industry’s objective of providing consistency and alignment in this field.”

Grace Cheung, Oneworld’s environmental and sustainability board chair, said the group is proud to be the first global airline alliance to support IATA’s work to provide customers with high-quality estimates of the CO2 emissions of their flights. Ther collaboration, she said, “will in turn help key players across the aviation sector, including airlines, aircraft manufacturers and travel management companies among others, to make better and more informed choices for travelers and enhanced ESG reporting.”

IATA launched CO2 Connect in June 2022, with the objective of using member airline data, such as fuel burn, belly cargo and load factors, to provide high-quality per-flight passenger CO2 emission calculations. Paired with other IATA and open market data sources, IATA CO2 Connect calculates CO2 emissions for 74 aircraft types, representing 98% of the active global passenger fleet, and considers traffic data from 881 aircraft operators representing 93% of global air travel.