SWISS and Lufthansa Group Forge Groundbreaking Partnership with Climeworks for Carbon Capture Innovation

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) and the Lufthansa Group have initiated a pioneering alliance with Climeworks, a company based in Switzerland that specializes in a groundbreaking technology for carbon dioxide extraction from the atmosphere. This collaboration marks a significant step for SWISS in bolstering the development and application of this crucial technology within the aviation industry, reinforcing its commitment to fostering Swiss innovation. This partnership further enriches the ongoing efforts by SWISS and the Lufthansa Group to engage in cutting-edge technologies aimed at lowering the carbon footprint of the airline sector and enhancing the sustainability of flight operations.

As trailblazers in the aviation industry, SWISS and the Lufthansa Group are the inaugural airline partners to forge a significant, long-term strategic alliance with Climeworks. This cooperation is focused on advancing the scale-up of Climeworks’s direct air capture (DAC) technology, a revolutionary method for the atmospheric removal of carbon dioxide (CO2) and its permanent underground storage. By entering into a CO2 removal agreement with Climeworks, both airline groups are taking a significant leap towards achieving their lofty sustainability goals, with the partnership slated to run through 2030 and options for expanding carbon removal efforts.

SWISS and the Lufthansa Group: pioneers in scaling up key sustainability technologies

“We are very proud to be the first airline in the world to collaborate with Climeworks and make this substantial contribution to the scaling up of a technology that should help take the airline sector a long way towards achieving its net-zero objective,” says SWISS Chief Executive Officer Dieter Vranckx. “Sustainability is both a growing issue among our customers and a cornerstone of our corporate strategy. And alongside our other extensive actions to reduce our CO2 emissions, we are now demonstrating our further commitment to the sustainability cause by becoming the first airline to team up with Climeworks and thereby highlight the key importance of its direct air capture technology to the air transport sector. At the same time, we are once again promoting and supporting Swiss innovation through our new Climeworks collaboration.”

“We are delighted to have secured SWISS and the Lufthansa Group as our first partners from the aviation sector for our direct air capture technology,” adds Jan Huckfeldt, Climeworks’s Chief Commercial Officer. “Their interest and involvement confirm the demand within the airline industry for quality long-term solutions to eliminate CO2. And their commitment is vital to our endeavours to scale up our technology. Through their involvement on the carbon removal front, SWISS and the Lufthansa Group are playing a pioneering role, and are underlining their firm commitment to achieving net-zero emissions within the airline sector.”

Climeworks: Leading the Charge in DAC Technology

Climeworks stands at the forefront of the DAC technology domain, providing a crucial solution for directly extracting CO2 from the air and securely sequestering it. As the aviation sector aims for substantial reductions in carbon emissions, integrating DAC alongside other negative emission technologies becomes imperative. Climeworks operates the largest DAC facility for CO2 storage globally, located in Iceland, and has ambitious plans for expansion. Additional details on Climeworks’s DAC technology and its benefits can be found in the provided information.

Moreover, DAC technology presents a scalable solution for harvesting atmospheric CO2 to produce the next wave of synthetic fuels, or sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), essential for the airline industry’s decarbonization efforts. SWISS and the Lufthansa Group have been at the forefront, advocating for the development of these critical fuel technologies.

Enhancing Customer Offers for Greater Sustainability

SWISS and its affiliates within the Lufthansa Group are constantly innovating to offer their customers more sustainable air travel options. This includes promoting the use of SAF and supporting advanced climate technologies. SWISS provides various options for customers to enhance the sustainability of their travel, such as purchasing SAF and/or compensating for their flight’s carbon emissions by investing in climate protection projects. Soon, SWISS customers will also have the opportunity to support the expansion of Climeworks’s DAC technology, further contributing to environmental sustainability efforts.

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