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Compensate for your flight's estimated CO2e emissions when booking on AirCanada.com or with the widget below. When you do, you support certified carbon offset projects selected with Air Canada by Chooose™ carbon professionals.ℹ︎
Support trusted climate action
Address your carbon footprint by connecting your air travel with certified, high-impact carbon offset projects.
Chooose™ is a leading climate-tech company headquartered in Oslo, Norway. Together with its ecosystem of industry partners and individual supporters, the Chooose platform is accelerating access and adoption of climate solutions across a range of key technologies – from nature-based solutions to carbon removal to Sustainable Aviation Fuel.
A greenhouse gas (GHG) is a type of gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. The most commonly known GHG emissions generated from man-made activities are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and fluorinated gases (HFCs).
According to the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG), the global aviation sector contributes between 2% and 3% of the world’s total GHG emissions. Although other GHG emissions are generated from global aviation, the primary GHG source from aviation is CO2 generated from the combustion of conventional jet fuel, a fossil-based fuel, that powers the aircraft engines.
Carbon offsetting enables organizations or individuals to take climate action by voluntarily supporting certified third-party projects that contribute to the reduction, avoidance, or removal of GHG emissions.
Certified carbon projects issue carbon credits. Each carbon credit, carbon offset, or emission reduction unit represents a single unit of GHG emissions (being one (1) tonne carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e)) that is reduced, avoided, or removed from the atmosphere. A unit of GHG emissions can be reduced, avoided, or removed from the atmosphere through various project types (e.g. forestry projects, landfill methane recovery and destruction).
Carbon offsetting is the act of financing carbon offset projects that help offset a company’s or an individual’s GHG emissions footprint. The purchase of a carbon offset or carbon credit enables the buyer to offset GHG emissions they are contributing to in one place by financing projects that reduce, avoid, or remove GHG emissions happening somewhere else.
An organization’s claim to have offset emissions is validated under a set of rigorous conditions – the emissions reductions, avoidances, or removals must be additional, measurable, auditable, permanent, and unique. The certification process for a carbon offset project is robust.
We urgently need action on climate change by first reducing our GHG emissions, and then addressing the GHG emissions that do happen. Climate change is caused by human activities, namely the emission of GHG into the air, and is threatening the way we live and the future of our planet. Organizations worldwide, including the United Nations, are advocating for, and building, a climate-neutral society. Time is critical, and the more climate-positive actions we can take today, the better.
When you book a flight using Aeroplan points or a combination of points and cash, Air Canada will offset its estimated scope 1 GHG emissions by purchasing carbon credits based on emissions estimated to be associated with your flight*. Specifically, the carbon credits retired will be an amount equivalent to the estimated GHG emissions associated with the portion of your itinerary that’s operated by Air Canada, once the flight is completed.
You can view the estimated scope 1 GHG emissions that will be compensated by Air Canada when booking a flight redemption using Aeroplan points, or a combination of Aeroplan points and cash. The estimate provided is subject to change should you cancel or modify your journey, or should your flight be cancelled or rebooked by Air Canada.
For your flight to qualify for this program, you must be an Aeroplan member at the time of the redemption and be signed into your Aeroplan account. If you are not an Aeroplan member, you can visit the Aeroplan web site (aircanada.com/aeroplan) and enroll today. Membership is free. Full terms and conditions of the Aeroplan Program apply and are available online at https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/home/aeroplan/legal/terms-and-conditions.html.
Only flights operated by Air Canada (flown on Air Canada, Air Canada Rouge and Air Canada Express) are eligible for this program. Air Canada will claim the GHG reductions on its direct GHG emissions (also known as scope 1 emissions, for flights flown on Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge) and its other indirect GHG emissions (also known as scope 3 emissions, for flights flown on Air Canada Express).
This means that the GHG emissions reductions associated with those carbon offset credits cannot be accounted for by you. For information on the allocation of the GHG emissions of an individual passenger’s Air Canada flight, please view the “How do you calculate GHG emissions for my flight?” in this FAQ.
Currently, SAF Environmental Attributes are not integrated into the Aeroplan carbon offset reward program for flight rewards. When booking a flight using Aeroplan points, or a combination of points and cash, customers will not be offered the voluntary option to participate in the Leave Less Travel Program.
*This estimate may not reflect the actual emissions associated with your flight(s), which are dependent on a wide range of factors which may vary meaningfully from flight to flight and should not be relied upon as an accurate record of the emissions generated from your flight(s).
You can simply visit Chooose carbon offset site and enter your itinerary information.
When individuals and organizations offset their carbon footprints, the funds paid contribute to projects that reduce, capture, or avoid GHG emissions in an amount equivalent to that of their calculated carbon footprint. Offsetting provides a critical source of financing for these projects. A detailed overview of the climate solutions supported through this program is available here.
Once the verified carbon offsets are purchased by individuals and organizations they are ‘retired’ by being taken out of circulation, blocking them for future use and thus avoiding double counting. All credits that you purchase are held on the applicable carbon registry and then “retired” on your behalf.Retiring a carbon credit permanently removes it from circulation and prevents it from being sold or used twice.
The carbon offsets made available on the Chooose carbon offset site are Voluntary Emission Reduction (VER) units. The projects issuing these carbon offsets are certified to internationally recognized carbon certification standards that set requirements for the design and implementation of carbon projects such as the Verified Carbon Standard, the Gold Standard, American Carbon Registry, and Climate Action Reserve.
The independent third-party verifications are performed by accredited verifiers and follow best practices as well as the verification criteria indicated in each specific standard.
The price you see represents the total cost to deliver the carbon offset service. All of the funds collected, excluding taxes and the fees charged by Chooose on each transaction, are applied directly to carbon offsets sourced from certified projects. For each transaction, a small administrative and technology fee is charged and received by Chooose. The administrative and technology fee is USD 0.42 per passenger per flight, and this contributes to cover Chooose’s running costs.
Air Canada does not profit from such contributions, nor does Air Canada receive any revenue from Chooose.
Any purchase you make through Chooose is voluntary. Once you purchase a carbon offset through CHOOOSE, you can request a refund within 24 hours of the purchase by contacting aircanada-support@chooose.today and providing the order number found on your receipt. Chooose will process the reimbursement within 5 working days from the day on which Chooose receives your refund request. Order refunds will be reimbursed to the same payment method that you used for the original purchase.
After 24 hours, no refund is available unless otherwise required by law. This is applicable even if you change, cancel or modify your journey or in case of cancellation or rebooking of your flight by the carrier for any reason. In such cases, your carbon offset order will continue to fund the selected project(s).
In order for a climate project to receive certification from a credible carbon certification body, it must demonstrate "additionality." Additionality means that the GHG emissions reduction, avoidance or removal associated with that particular project would not have taken place in the absence of the project and that the project would not have been financially feasible without the generation and sale of carbon credits.
All carbon offsets available on this platform have had the additionality criteria case checked by both an independent third-party verifier and the respective carbon certification body at project inception.
Addressing climate change at the scale and pace needed requires us to immediately avoid new GHG emissions as well as to address some of the GHG emissions that are currently happening or already in the atmosphere.
Within this context, carbon offsets are one part of a broader climate strategy to advance global mitigation efforts– they are not intended to replace a company’s or individual's efforts to reduce their carbon emissions.
Instead, carbon offsetting should be viewed as supplementary climate action that complements broader decarbonization efforts.
To allocate the GHG emissions* of an Air Canada flight** to an individual passenger, Chooose uses the latest version of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Recommended Practice Per-Passenger CO2 Calculation Methodology.
This allocation is obtained by dividing the average jet fuel consumption of the flight by the average load (passengers and cargo). Allocation to an individual passenger is weighted based on the selected class of travel (business, premium economy or and economy) and size of aircraft (narrow or wide body).
If the journey includes connecting flights operated by other airlines, the allocation of GHG emissions for those flights is obtained based on average GHG emissions as provided by the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) Carbon Emissions Calculator Methodology (Version 11).
The calculation methodology used by Chooose provides an estimate only of the GHG emissions associated with your flight(s) and the cost to compensate for such GHG emissions and should not be relied upon as an accurate record of the actual emissions. Calculation results show GHG emissions in kgCO2e.
*GHG emissions from jet fuel combustion include CO2, CH4 and N2O emissions. The global warming potentials from IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) were used to convert the CO2, CH4 and N2O emissions to tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e). However, other GHG emissions sources such as upstream GHG emissions from jet fuel production (i.e., extraction, refining and transportation) and the non-CO2 terms (e.g., contrails) have not been included.
**Air Canada flight means a flight operated by Air Canada, Air Canada Rouge or Air Canada Express.
Air Canada, Aeroplan and Chooose calculate the GHG emissions allocated to a customer’s flight(s) by using historical fuel burn for the same flights based on internal data that external sites do not have access to. The data is updated on an annual basis to ensure that the calculations are as accurate as possible.
This service is hosted and delivered by climate tech company Chooose. Chooose’s mission is to close the multi-gigaton gap between climate intention and climate action by designing products and climate programs with transparency and ease of use. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Oslo, Norway, Chooose powers carbon compensation programs for partners across industries and across the globe. Choooose is Air Canada’s official offset provider. For more information about Chooose, please visit https://chooose.today/.