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Warren Buffett's private jet company makes carbon offsets obligatory

Published: September 13, 2007


PARIS: Going green will no longer be optional for some the world's highest fliers.

NetJets Europe, the operator of private planes that is owned by the investor Warren Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway, said Thursday it would oblige customers start paying an extra €4,000, or $5,560, a year to offset the carbon dioxide emissions from their flights.

"People want to know we are doing the right thing and every month our customers will be reminded of that in their management fee," said Mark Booth, chairman of NetJets Europe.

Booth said the program, the first of its kind, was aimed to address criticism that the aviation industry was doing too little to curb emissions linked to global warming.

Dan Esty, the director of the Center for Environmental Law and Policy at Yale, who advised NetJets Europe on the initiative, said the compulsory fee would help funnel money into carbon-reduction projects overseen by the United Nations. "The key to progress is getting all that private capital from wealthy clients of companies like NetJets flowing into projects in fast-growing places including Asia to reduce rapidly rising levels of pollution," Esty said. - James Kanter