This year, Virgin Atlantic Airways plans to become the first airline to offer customers sustainably sourced food. The United Kingdom’s Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) is currently scrutinizing the airline’s food supply chain to ensure that they’ll only provide meals from sustainable sources. The SRA provides independently-verified ratings of restaurants’ sustainability, awarding the establishments one, two, or three stars, and its ratings are featured in a number of restaurant guides, such as Harden’s. Virgin Atlantic and the SRA plan to have rated all of the airline’s caterers by the end of the year.
The Environmental Leader points out the 2013 Gibbs & Soell Sense & Sustainability Study that suggests that 80 percent of employees who participate in corporate eco-friendly programs will advocate similar values and practices to other people in their lives. The study also reports that 73 percent of employees would prefer that their workplace had more environmentally sustainable business practices. Virgin Atlantic is very public about its environment sustainability initiatives, such as their work to reduce carbon emissions, and has been rated the best recycler compared with other airlines. Additionally, Business Green reports that the airline is evaluating its contracting practices in Lagos, Nigeria, with the intent of possibly forming sustainability requirements for future contracts, and looking towards extending the sustainability of the airline’s catering practices in North America and the Caribbean.
