Google Flights now lets you see estimated carbon emissions for planned flights

Google is committed to helping people get a better understanding of travel by estimating the carbon footprint and related impact of any trip planned using Google Flights.

As announced on the company's blog, now when you use Google Flights to check prices or flight times, a carbon footprint estimate for each airline will also be listed under that data. Google (naively) hopes that this additional information will help people make more informed travel decisions.

Google also states that carbon dioxide emissions estimates are not just based on a specific flight. The findings allow you to differentiate between aircraft classification, age and even seats, such as whether you choose economy or first class. Larger seats take up more space and therefore have a larger carbon footprint associated with increased space requirements compared to more compact seats.

Any options with "significantly lower" carbon emissions will be marked with a green icon, which is easy to spot when searching Google Flights. Sorting by carbon footprint is also available to identify the greenest airline or specific flight.

A similar "greenest" option is now also displayed when searching for hotels.

Source: google

Cover: Fr. Daniel Ciucci on Unsplash