4% Action Plan

In 2008 we set a clear environmental target to reduce air traffic related CO2 by an average of 10% per flight by 2020 (from a 2006 baseline) with a challenging interim target to achieve a 4% reduction per flight by the end of 2014.

Where are we on the 4% Plan?

The 4% CO2 reduction programme demonstrates that NATS is leading the way amongst ANSPs in our responsibility towards the environment. We’ve committed to make a substantial contribution to reducing airlines’ indirect costs of ATM by enabling significant fuel burn savings.

In 2012, the on-going monitoring of our progress indicated that the environmental benefits from a number of major strategic airspace projects would be realised beyond 2015. The ‘4% Plan’ was established to deliver additional short-term flight efficiency measures to fill the gap and ensure we achieve the 4% target. The plan is now firmly in place and we’re going all out to achieve the 4% target by the end of 2014. The current forecast shows that this will still take significant effort, some innovative thinking and collaborative working with our customers and neighbouring ANSPs.

The scale and effort of the 4% programme is unprecedented; we’ve assigned more people, resources and continue to accelerate the pace of delivery. This was our best year yet; we’ve delivered more airspace changes, involved more people and enabled more savings with bigger reductions.

To date we’ve achieved over 2.2% CO2 savings on average per flight, enabling annual fuel savings worth over £110m to airline customers, equivalent to around 170,000 tonnes of fuel per annum. We continue to call on the knowledge and expertise of our front-line operational staff as well as our aviation industry partners to help us achieve the 4% CO2 reduction target.