Investing in Carbon Markets FAQs

Carbon credits do not reduce the emissions of your flight. Purchasing carbon credits allows individuals and businesses to help compensate for a portion of the carbon emissions associated with their activities by providing financial support to carbon projects outside the aviation industry that help to reduce, remove or avoid greenhouse gas emissions in other sectors of the economy.

Supporting carbon projects through the purchase of carbon credits, is not the same as preventing emissions from aviation. While we can calculate the estimated emissions for each route we fly to help determine your contribution, we note that no carbon project can provide a complete guarantee of the permanence of the emissions that a project removes from the atmosphere or a complete guarantee that the emissions avoided by a project's activities would not have occurred without the project. This may mean that your proportional emissions may not be 'offset' in their entirety or in perpetuity.

All carbon projects the Group sources carbon credits from are subject to several layers of scrutiny from global accredited registries for projects based outside of Australia, and the Australian Clean Energy Regulator for Australian projects. Further information on our internal standards for integrity and quality can be found in our 2024 Sustainability Report (PDF)

Emissions are calculated using guidance from both domestic and international standards to determine the carbon dioxide emissions equivalent (tCO2e) associated with your flight based on the information available at the time of booking, such as aircraft type, distance of the route and litres of fuel expected to be use based on historical data. The calculation takes into account Scope 3 emissions associated with the flight as well. The key international standards are issued by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

Our Fly Carbon Neutral program is a not-for-profit initiative. All customer contributions through Fly Carbon Neutral go directly to purchasing credits from projects that meet our internal requirements for integrity and quality and to cover the GST associated with such purchases. Any credits purchased through Fly Carbon Neutral will not be used by the Qantas Group to count towards meeting our targets or the regulatory requirements.

For further information on offsetting your Qantas flight, view the terms and conditions.

We recognise that climate change is a significant issue for the aviation industry. That’s why we're committed to reducing our net Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 25% by 2030 (from 2019 levels) and achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

Aviation is a hard-to-abate sector and  carbon credit projects that meet our internal requirements for integrity and quality will play an ongoing role in helping us to achieve our goals, even as alternate direct emissions reduction levers (such as sustainable aviation fuel, more fuel-efficient fleets, and emerging technologies) become more readily available, in order to address our residual emissions.

The Climate Active program is currently being reviewed following public consultation in 2023 on the future direction of the program.