Even between one pair of cities, there's an enormous range in flight impact, as we discovered in our groundbreaking study on aviation efficency
The opportunity
Our novel research in modeling air travel carbon and energy use shows that efficiency per passenger per mile varies by more than an order of magnitude across the industry. By making flight booking decisions based on carbon in addition to cost and convenience, travelers can make significant sustainability gains without increasing cost or reducing air travel.
Existing carbon-visibility solutions use low-resolution calculations that offer no contrast among options
Contrast is key
Brigher Planet's standards-certified flights model takes into account aircraft model, load factor, freight share, seat class, and other factors in addition to travel distance, calculating refined air travel footprints with a high degree of accuracy to reveal major differences among itinerary choices that aren't apparent with crude traditional carbon software.
Hipmunk recently introduced cross-mode search results, a move lauded on our blog as a sustainability coup
Contextual alternatives
Brighter Planet's flight impact calculations weave sustainability data into existing air travel booking engines to provide users with transparent choices at the point of sale, where carbon and energy information can truly make a difference in driving efficiency.
We built the Careplane browser plugin to experiment with contextual carbon information
Proving the concept
We built Careplane to integrate with travel serch sites Orbitz, Travelocity, Kayak, and Hipmunk. The cloud-based plug-in displays carbon analysis for every flight itinerary alternative, allowing travelers to make more informed travel choices.