Driving towards a circular economy

To really drive waste reduction, a circular approach must be adopted right at the design and procurement stage of the supply chain. Supporting sustainable packaging innovation and new recycling infrastructure will be critical in ensuring that the packaging and products in our supply chain, can be reused or recycled wherever possible.

To refocus our efforts in this space, we have committed to re-evaluating our strategy and relaunching a new plan and targets in 2024. Embedding a waste minimisation culture throughout Air New Zealand is fundamental to improving our diversion of waste from landfill.

Find out more in the Driving towards a circular economy section of our 2023 Sustainability Report.

Project Green

Air New Zealand has diverted more than 1,500 tonnes of in-flight waste from landfill since the launch of our recycling and waste reduction initiative, Project Green, in 2017.

Project Green enables unused items from a flight service, that previously may have gone to waste, to be put onto a subsequent flight provided they come off the aircraft completely sealed and untouched.

The reclassification of these items was made possible through a collaboration between the airline, its catering partner LSG Sky Chefs and the Ministry for Primary Industries.

Project Green covers more than 40 inflight products, including cans of soft drink, packets of cookies, boxed tea, coffee and sugar sachets and sealed napkins. Prior to the establishment of this process in Auckland, even unopened products taken on board would have had to be either incinerated or steam sanitised and deep landfilled due to biosecurity restrictions.