On the ground action

When most people think ‘Cathay’ they think flying, but there’s more to flying than the planes. From check-in to lounge services, baggage handling to in-flight catering, there’s a community of companies working to get you to your destination. Each has its own role to play, and each needs to manage its carbon footprint.

If you’ve flown Cathay, you’ve experienced the service of our airport-related companies. What you mightn’t have noticed are the emissions-reducing initiatives that are being introduced behind the scenes to help us serve a growing number of passengers while helping to cut down our climate impact. We have established multiple near term targets to reduce ground emissions by 32% by 2030 and 55% by 2035, from 2018 baseline. Our airport-related companies are helping us achieve this while delivering services on a massive scale.

Our catering company, Cathay Pacific Catering Services (CPCS),Open a new window produced over 30 million meals before the pandemic – that’s 83,000 meals a day! As you might imagine, all this food preparation and storage takes a lot of energy and water. CPCS has introduced new heating, chilling and ventilation systems that prevented 460 tonnes of CO2 being released into the atmosphere – the equivalent of about 75 Hongkongers’ CO2 emissions for one yearOpen a new window.

We don’t just transport passengers, we also transport cargo and sometimes extra special cargoOpen a new window. Cathay Pacific Services Limited (CPSL)Open a new window
handles cargo for different airlines at Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA). CPSL is committed to minimising the impact on the environment through implementing green initiatives, like using solar power in warehouses and switching thousands of older lights to LEDs, CO2 emissions fell.

Vogue Laundry Services (VLS)Open a new window processed around 38 tonnes of laundry every day for over 20 airlines and 35 hotels in 2021. That’s a lot of washing and a lot of dry-cleaning. Vogue has been using carbon-absorbing technology to improve its processes, resulting in a 15% reduction in emissions of one of the harmful gases that dry-cleaning releases into the environment.

As of the end of 2021, 80% of sites owned by the Cathay Pacific Group in Hong Kong, including Cathay Pacific City, Cathay House, CPCS Building and VLS Yuen Long Plant, are covered by ISO 14001:2015 standard.

From land to sky we set targets to help us reduce our carbon footprint. Want to see how we reduce emissions from our flights? Click hereOpen a new window.