Flight School: How to Reduce Your Eco-Impact from Flying

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Wondering how to choose an eco-friendly flight? Bluedot Living's Leslie Garrett shares her best tips for greening up your travel game:

Fly less. Seriously.

When time/distance allows, take a train, a bus, a car.

If you must fly, book economy.

First-class generates two to four times the emissions of economy.

Fly direct, non-stop when possible.

Proportionally, more fuel is burned during take-off and landing, making non-stop flights more fuel-efficient. And check out the International Council on Clean Transportation, which can tell you how to book the least emitting flights.

Fly during the day.

Contrails and the cirrus clouds created by planes trap heat and cause warming, but especially at night. During the day, these contrails and clouds reflect sunlight back into space, thereby reducing the impact.

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Consider buying offsets

While not perfect, offsets can contribute to counterbalancing some of the emissions from flying. Bluedot’s own Dear Dot guides you to the most impactful offset programs.

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Leslie Garrett
Leslie Garrett
Leslie Garrett is a journalist and the Editorial Director of Bluedot, Inc. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, and more. She is the author of more than 15 books, including The Virtuous Consumer, a book on living more sustainably. Leslie lives most of the year in Canada with her husband, three children, three dogs and three cats. She is building a home on Martha's Vineyard.
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