China Eastern Airlines (China Eastern) has saved more than 600,000 tons of fuel oil and reduced about two million tons of carbon emissions in 2020, thanks to its efforts to improve operation efficiency and promote green development in recent years, according to the company’s latest corporate social responsibility (CSR) report.

Last year, the airline introduced more than 1,000 new-energy vehicles for ground services and actively took part in market-based mechanisms for reducing carbon emissions and international affairs concerning global climate governance, extending its environmental protection efforts to various links in air and ground services.  

As China marches towards its goal of peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2060, China Eastern is also ramping up efforts to shoulder its responsibility and play an active role in promoting the reduction of carbon emissions and push forward with sustainable development.

During this year’s annual conference of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), , President of China Eastern Liu Shaoyong, submitted a proposal suggesting formulating a plan for peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2060 in China’s civil aviation sector.

Trying to realize the vision of green and sustainable development, China Eastern has observed strictly regulations on carbon reduction of the global aviation industry, strengthened assessment management in all links of daily operations, and actively taken part in carbon emissions trading in Shanghai, European Union’s carbon emissions trading, activities of the national carbon market of China and endeavors concerning carbon emissions of the civil aviation industry.

China Eastern also attended the online Aviation Green Recovery Seminar held by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and online discussions organized by the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), sparing no effort to explore approaches to and concrete measures for green and low-carbon aviation development.

In fact, in addition to promoting energy conservation and carbon emissions reduction, China Eastern has also actively integrated its development with social value in such aspects as the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic, resumption of work and production amid the pandemic, safe development, and intelligent services, in a bid to constantly push forward with sustainable development.

China Eastern was the first airline company to undertake a flight for international aid since the outbreak of the COVID-19. It has performed 24,000 transport flights of various types for the global fight against the COVID-19, carrying a total of nearly 23,000 medical workers and approximately 70,000 tons of supplies.

The company innovatively developed an application that enables passengers to report their health status, and ensured that none of the over 60 million passengers who took its flights last year was infected with the COVID-19 in the passenger cabin.      

In an effort to facilitate China’s economic recovery and global anti-epidemic efforts, China Eastern has launched charter flight services to help take workers from their hometowns to places they work, and converted passenger flights into cargo flights to carry cargoes to various international destinations.

While fighting against the pandemic together with people around the world, China Eastern, as one of the safest airlines in the world, has never stopped enhancing its overall capacity for guaranteeing safe trips and safe management. According to its new CSR report, last year, the company managed to maintain its record of zero serious accident for the tenth consecutive year.

While continuously upgrading its smart services to bring more convenience to people’s air trips, China Eastern became the first airline to roll out the “fly at will” air ticket discount packages in China. In 2020, a total of 2.75 million air trips were made with these ticket packages, which have effectively boosted the recovery of China’s aviation and tourism industry chains.

As the COVID-19 pandemic accelerates the global trend towards sustainable development, more and more Chinese enterprises attach greater attention to fulfilling their CSR, and take the initiative to publish CSR report in multiple languages to respond to the demands and expectations of international media, the public, and various stakeholders.