Statement of the Problem

1.1 Overview

In the modern era, aviation is a significant part for human beings with respect to leisure and business travelling in various countries. It can be well observed when there is an adverse effect on business when certain flights get cancelled indefinitely due to adverse weather conditions or due to any mechanical errors. It is known that aviation is an integral part of human life but it is seen that aviation industry is one of the largest constitutor of greenhouse gases in the environment. Therefore, it is one of the major environmental problems that are leading to changes in the climate. The human activities that are leading to rise in pollution are mainly measured with the help of carbon footprints and it is seen that the rise in CF has an increased impact on the climate and the environment.

The rise of aviation industry in the world saw the emission of CO₂ gases from the use of fossil fuels and it was not considered too much by the people in those days. However, in the recent times with the advent of new and improved technologies and high demand in the aviation industry, the number of flights that are flying everyday has increased and the number of flight that are operating in the aviation industry has increased significantly. Therefore, it seen that aviation has grown up to be fastest growing source of carbon emission with respect to the transportation sector with a forecast that the level of emission from the aviation industry may rise up to 15% by the year 2030.

There are various activities that take place that leads to the increase in the emission of air pollutants and therefore it is seen that there aviation industry acts as one of the major contributors of CO2 emissions. It is seen that apart from the aeroplanes, there are various other reasons how aviation industry contributes to pollution and they include the runway lightings, airport vehicles, high powered generators and other auxiliary services like the catering and the passenger travel. There are various efforts that are undertaken by the aviation industry in order to understand the adverse of carbon emissions. Human beings who are operating in the economy are aware about the environmental changes and therefore they are even in the idea of compelling the aviation industry to change their strategy to reduce the effect of carbon emission. Therefore the aviation industry is on the lookout to offset the carbon emission in order to attract the customers,

Research Questions

The problem statement deals with finding out the solutions that can improve the services of aviation industry. There are several factors than can reduce the carbon emission in the aviation industry. One of the main concerns of the aviation industry circles over the fatal effect of carbon emission that leads to adverse effect on the climate. It is seen that rise in the level of emission of CO2 has mainly been due to the rise in the aviation industry by human beings to lower their time of travel. The increase in the number of flights and their duration of flight has increased the emission. Therefore, it can be said that humans play an indirect role in the increase in pollution. There are several on ground departments and employees who are associated with the functioning of the aviation industry and who are continuously undertaking several researches to minimize the emission of CO2. This research paper concentrates on the offsetting of the carbon that lead to challenges in the aviation industry. The paper tries to reveal the effect of CO2 emission on the environment and the process that can be implemented in order to offset them and create a sustainable aviation industry. The problem that is pertinent is the errors in maintenance that lowers the service quality of the industry and rise in emission. It is seen that customer are indirectly the reason for rise in the emission and therefore the aviation industries try to offset the carbon by taking payment from the customers that may make the customers unhappy.

There are various research questions that require to be framed in order to find out the best solution to evaluate the effect of carbon offsetting among the cusotmers in the aviation maintenance. The questions are given below:

Q1. What is the impact of CO2 emission in the aviation industry?

Q2. Is the customer willing to pay for the offsetting of the carbon?

Q3. What recommendations can be made to offset Carbon?

The research objective is structured in order to evaluate the problem due to which the research paper has been framed. The research objective of the concerned paper is discussed below:

• To analyze the effect of carbon-offsetting in the aviation industry
• To examine the desire and the willingness to pay by the customers for the offsetting of carbon
• To give out suggestions and recommendations to the industry in order to offset the Carbon with the help of the customers

This section of the paper is comprised of the literature that has been given by various researchers with respect to the effect of carbon offsetting among the customers. Various researchers have found out various factors that will be discussed in this paper in order to find out what are the various other ways to reduce the emission of carbon and what are factors that are leading to rise in emission in the aviation industry.

Research Objective

The scientists reveal that the rate of climate change has increase immensely and one of the major reasons is the rise of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Babakhani  et al., (2016) explains that there has been a rise in the mean temperature of the world due to rise in the release of greenhouse gases. The airlines that function in the economy run on fossil fuels and it is known that fossil fuels comprise of carbons. Baumeister & Onkila (2017) reveals that the fuel that is used by the airline industries comprise of the finest quality but still the level of emission has increased significantly. Gössling et al., (2015) explained that aviation industry contribute to about 2% of the overall carbon emissions that are seen all over the world and non-carbon emissions comprise of 3.5% of the total radioactive forces. Segerstedt, & Grote (2016) explains the importance of reducing the level of CO2 emission in order to make the future policies regarding environment by the aviation industries to be effective.

Choi et al., (2016) explains that the rate of environmental changes is having an impact on the mean temperature of the globe and therefore the level of natural calamities is increasing. The rise in the natural calamities is even having an adverse effect on the aviation industry as the level of accidents has increased in the aviation industries. The human beings are facing great problems due to changes in the environment and therefore, it is seen that if changes in the regulations are not made by the industry then it would lead to fall in demand within a few years.

The aviation industry due to this reason has started taking new and improved initiatives in order to reduce the level of carbon emission. The industry has started making use of air filters in the exhaust of the fumes so that the emission can be can reduced that can have less impact on the environment. Baranzini et al., (2016) has even revealed that the aviation industries are planning to offset the carbon emission by taking money from the customers. The industry feels that undertaking this method will maintain their profit and to introduce innovative techniques in every plane that would take a long time if it is implemented with the capital of the aviation industry.

Hardisty et al., (2017) reveals that carbon is the life function of all living beings. However, the gaseous emission of carbon in the form CO and CO2 can have an adverse effect on the environment and then on the human beings. The developed countries engage themselves into carbon trading with the help of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The projects that are undertaken by CDM creates a style of carbon offset that is known as Certified Emission Reduction (CER) that helps in the absorption of 1 tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere. This system is taken by the countries that are under the Kyoto Protocol and as the aviation industries are not under this protocol and therefore the airline industries cannot give in to the CERs and gain the appreciation for their operations. However, the industry can offer CER to their clients as an initiative of an offsetting of carbon.

Literature Review

The deliberate market functions along with the compliance market to deliver carbon credits to industries who want to develop their green qualifications or human beings like airline passengers who want to recompense for their individual carbon footprint. VERs (Verified Emission Reductions) is alike to CERs but are not controlled by the CDM and thus the exploitation mass of other criterions. As discussed, CERs can be purchased and sold in the voluntary market as and when required (Hagmann et al., 2015).

In the year 2004, Nair & Paulose (2014) explained that Natural Air wanted go be the world’s first carbon free airline by spending unswervingly in the preservation of the Costa Rican rain forests. In some years down the line, British Airways became the first airline to make carbon offsetting obtainable to its passengers and thereafter the word carbon neutral became strongly founded in the conventional.  

The key agent body of airline industry, IATA, came into service in 2008 by publishing toolkit and guidelines for Aviation Carbon Offset Programmes and the commencement of their own service of carbon offsetting for airlines. Recently, there exist 228 carbon offset providers (wholesalers, retailers, project developers, consultants and brokers) according to Kim et al., (2016). However, it is seen that there are 25 airlines all over the world that makes use of the carbon offset service.

The voluntary carbon offsetting market supports a diversity of projects which the compliance markets do not cover. These are often small projects located in least developed countries and with additional sustainable development benefits. These projects are governed by standards established by non-governmental organization partnerships such as the Climate Change and Biodiversity Alliance which focuses on sustainable development and conservation of biodiversity. Perhaps the best known is the Gold Standard which is supported by over sixty NGOs and founded by WWF in 2003 supplying premium offsets under the CDM and Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) largely to the voluntary market. A study by Baumeister & Onkila (2014) found that projects which have co-benefits may encourage uptake of carbon offsets especially where those co-benefits are emphasized to consumers. Consumers were also found to be willing to pay the increased transaction costs associated with such co-benefits. Airlines would arguably have a stronger platform on which to fight the inclusion of aviation in the EU ETS if they actively demonstrated support for voluntary carbon offsetting and encouraged uptake amongst their passengers.

The current chapter on research methodology explicates in detail the research methods that are specifically implemented to this field of study. Essentially, the current section comprises of the theoretical evaluation of different body of methods as well as principles that can be related to the current study. The present section expounds in detail the research philosophy, research design, research approach, sources of collected data along with the methods of collection of data, sample size, sampling and enumeration technique of acquired data.

The current study has utilized the research philosophy of positivism that has helped in the procedure of substantiation. The research philosophy of positivism emphasizes the fact that authentic knowledge can be accepted only if the effectual knowledge also referred to as the truth is essentially scientific and originates from specific derived knowledge.

The researcher has made use of the deductive research approach for the current research work. In this case, the adoption of the deductive research approach is said to be justified as this approach helps in the process of development of specific research hypotheses based on the extant principles as well as theories. The deductive research approach subsequently assists in the process of designing and developing a specific research strategy that in turn can help in the process of scrutiny of the framed research hypotheses.

The learner of the current study has implemented a descriptive research design for the current research work. The adoption of the descriptive research design can be regarded to be justified as this has assisted in the process of determination, description and identification of the current issues through interpretation of the acquired data for the study. As such, the descriptive research design has also helped in the process of validation of the findings/results of the research.  

For the purpose of the present study, the learner has developed a questionnaire for conduction of a research survey. A five point likert scaling method is used for enumerating either a positive or else negative responses to the questionnaire. This scaling method also helps in the process of allowing the respondents of the survey to express the extent to which they agree otherwise disagree with a specific statement. The questionnaire framed for the survey was distributed to the employees of the British Airways with an appeal for reply. The target respondents of the research survey rated their responses on particularly a five point likert scale. In addition primary data are also collected from the responses of 4 managers of the company

The learner has made use of the non-probabilistic sampling procedure in which the samples are selected founded on subjective decisions. In this particular sampling technique, the sample is essentially not adopted randomly and the samples do not have equal possibility of getting designated. The learner has collected data from 50 employees of British Airways. Thus, the sample size for the survey of the study is said to be 50.

The learner has adopted the mixed method that is both qualitative as well as quantitative research techniques for the present study. The quantitative research techniques necessarily stresses objective enumerations where statistical, mathematical or else numerical analysis are carried out for acquired data by means of the questionnaire for the research survey. The qualitative technique used in the study essentially includes observational study of the subjective responses and judgments collected from the managers of the company through interview method. In addition to this, the current study also uses qualitative techniques for systematic of the prior academic literature of the study.

The data amassed from the questionnaire were essentially entered into particular software SPSS in which statistical as well as mathematical techniques such as frequency distribution, descriptive statistics has been implemented to explore the nature of association between organizational change and the performance of employees in British Airways. In addition to this, observational methods and study of patterns from the responses of the managers in the interview has been used for the study.

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