Finnair has announced that it will fly the first biofuel flights backed by its “Push for change” carbon decreasing initiative. The first flight took off on 5 August and the second flight will take off on 7 August.

These two Finnair flights departing San Francisco Airport bound for Helsinki, Finland, are being flown with a biofuel mix of 12%, reducing the total C02 emissions for the flight by approximately 32 tons.

“The launch of our Push for Change initiative was an important step for Finnair in order to provide our customers with the opportunity to conveniently offset or decrease the emissions from their travel,” said Arja Suominen, senior vice president of communications and corporate responsibility at Finnair. “We have been pleased with the early phases of the initiative so far and we are now moving forward to fly our two first biofuel flights supported entirely by the push for change contributions.”

Finnair’s biofuels partners in San Francisco are SkyNRG and World Energy; Shell Aviation has provided logistics and supply chain support for the project. The sustainable biofuel is produced from used cooking oil in California, which does not compete with food production or the agriculture industry.