THE RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Research Proposal on ‘Accountability of the airline industry in Australia in terms of
raising awareness on sustainability and making high quality carbon offsetting’
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Abstract
Aviation industry across the globe contributes a significant amount of carbon in the atmosphere,
which is a major reason for global warming. The amount of carbon emission per air passenger is
highest in comparison to other modes of transportation. In the Paris Climate Agreement, the
United Nations has pledged to stop the temperature increase of the planet by 1.5 degree Celsius
and for that the carbon emission must be reduced significantly. The airline industry is taking
measures for raising awareness about sustainability and carbon offsetting. This research study
aims to explore the sustainably measures taken by the Australian aviation industry to raise the
sustainability awareness among the passengers and to have effective carbon offsetting.
Secondary exploratory research will be conducted to get an overview about the sustainable
practices and their effectiveness in reducing carbon emission. The expected outcome of the study
will benefit in understanding how much the measures were effective till date and how those can
be improved for a better result.

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Introduction
There has been a surge in the airline travel all around the world since the past few
decades. The number of domestic as well as international tourists has been increasing
significantly every year. Due to globalization, companies are expanding globally and thus,
number of business travelers is increasing. Moreover, the education systems in almost all the
countries including Australia are opening up opportunities for international students. Thus, all
such reasons are leading to increase in airline traffic, which on hand is beneficial for economic
growth, but on the other hand, contributing in the increased carbon emission in the atmosphere
(Becken & Mackey, 2017). According to the data of Air Transport Action Group (ATAG)
(2020), it has been found that the aviation sector contributes 2.1% of the total global carbon
emissions, among which 1.3% is generated from international flights, and 0.7% is generated
from domestic flights. Furthermore, the airlines not only emit CO2, but there are other emissions
also. CO2 consists of 5% to 6% in the total emissions, water vapor is 2%, and nitrogen oxide,
carbon monoxide, sulphur oxide and unburned hydrocarbons consist of around 0.03%. Among
all these gasses, CO2 has the most detrimental impact, that is, the level of carbon in the
atmosphere is the major reason for rising temperature of the planet. Thus, the United Nations has
started taking actions to raise awareness on sustainability and reducing carbon emission
substantially to prevent earth’s temperature from rising, and the global aviation industry is
following those.
The aim of this research study is to examine the effectiveness of the measures taken by
the Australian aviation sector for raising awareness on sustainability flying practices and carbon

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offsetting, to understand their impact and find ways for further improvement of the practices and
policies.
The research questions are:
1) What are the measures taken by the Australian aviation industry to raise awareness about
sustainability and to implement carbon offsetting?
2) How much have the sustainability measures been effective in raising awareness among
the aviation companies and passengers and in reducing carbon emissions by the flights in
Australia?
3) How can the sustainable practices be improved for further efficient carbon offsetting?
Literature review
Sustainability has emerged as one of the major concerns of the modern world. In the era
of globalization, advanced technology, digitalization, economic progress and higher purchasing
capacity of people, as the level of consumerism has increased significantly, it also has been
affecting the environmental balance of the earth, resulting in issues like global warming, climate
change, rising sea level etc. Sustainability is being affected substantially due to industrial
activities, agricultural activities such as, raising livestock, and increased transportation across the
world (Geissdoerfer et al., 2017). The global aviation industry also contributes a considerable
amount of carbon and other harmful gasses in the atmosphere which is a major factor for
temperature rise of the planet. Thus, according to the guidelines of the United Nations, the
aviation sector is also taking measures for raising awareness among people about the need for
sustainability (Becken & Mackey, 2017).

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The Paris Climate Agreement emphasizes on reducing the carbon emission from every
economic sector and industry and that includes the airlines industry also. Since, the level of
carbon emission has increased quite rapidly and considerably over the past decade, it has become
a matter of concern for the entire world. For the past few years the climate activists are
promoting that that the air travel should be minimized to save the earth, and this movement was
further pushed by the Swedish young climate activist Greta Thunberg to draw the attention of the
political leaders for taking significant legal actions to reduce the environmental footprint from
the aviation sector (Vaughan, 2019). As mentioned by Feng et al. (2018), the volume of carbon
emission per air passenger is higher than any other mode of transportation. It is almost 285g per
kilometer travelled, while the same from road transportation is 158g and from rail transportation
is only 14g. The aviation industry committed to improve the fuel efficiency of the aircrafts by
1.5% every year since 2009 and to stabilize the CO2 emissions to a level 50% less in 2050 as
compared to 2005 (Schäfer et al., 2016). However, this is a great challenge as the number of air
passengers is expected to be doubled in the next decades. Moreover, it has been highlighted by
the airlines that the technology required for reducing carbon emission drastically is still not
available in plenty and it is often quite expensive for the low budget carriers to afford (Higham et
al., 2016).
Many countries have backed the green tax imposed on the aviation for reducing carbon
emission, while it has also been criticized that the tax proceedings are not being used in
sustainability measures as it was expected (Zheng, Qiao & Wang, 2017). Apart from aiming to
replace the older aircrafts with fuel efficient new fleets, the airlines have now started
implementing sustainable flying practices to raise the awareness among the passengers as well as
among the employees. Govia et al. (2019) described that the sustainable flying practices include

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many processes, such as, not taking flights for short distance travel, choosing a direct flight as
much as possible, selecting an airline with higher sustainability index, replacing the plastic cups
and cutleries with reusable steel products on board, replacing plastic water bottles with
biodegradable paper cups, and plastic straws with paper straws, using light-weight beverage
carts, reducing number of check-in luggage, and replacing meals with higher meat components
with vegan meals. However, it is not possible to follow every practice, but the airlines can adopt
sustainable measures as much as possible for not only raising awareness but also contributing
towards less carbon emission.
Proposed methodology/methods and data sources
The research paper aims to conduct an exploratory study on the aviation industry of
Australia. There have been multiple studies on sustainable flying practices and carbon offsetting
measures that can be implemented by the airlines to reduce their carbon emission and through
this study, the Australian aviation sector will be examined on which of the sustainable practices
have been implemented, how much those have been successful in carbon offsetting and
increasing awareness among people, and what further measures can be taken to improve
effectiveness of the initiatives. Therefore, to conduct this exploratory study, inductive research
approach will be applied. In this approach, the information is evaluated using qualitative analysis
method without any preconceived notion to generate a new aspect of the data (Woiceshyn &
Daellenbach, 2018). In this study, as there is no scope for conducting explanatory research by
deigning research hypothesis and examining those against established theories, as in case of
deductive research approach.

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The research study will be based on secondary data as primary data cannot be collected
due to reasons like, inaccessibility to the larger population or the appropriate sample size to
collect relevant information regarding the research topic. Therefore, secondary information will
be collected from various secondary sources, like, aviation industry reports and publications,
tourism industry reports, sustainability information from the websites of different Australian
airlines, newspaper articles, journals, United Nations publications etc. Both qualitative and
quantitative information will be collected to address the research questions as both types of
information, that is, text and numeric, are essential for understanding the effectiveness of the
measures taken by the airlines in Australia.
Qualitative analysis method will be applied on the data to get the findings. Thematic
analysis method will be used, in which different relevant themes will be chosen by taking a cue
from the points discussed in the literature review section. The information will be analyzed and
the findings will be presented as per the themes chosen (Braun et al., 2019) and hence,
qualitative analysis is relevant in this study, and as, no statistical calculation will be performed
on the numeric data, therefore, quantitative analysis method will not applicable in this study.
Expected research outcomes
There have been multiple researches on sustainable practices adopted in the transport
sector around the world. The transport sector includes automobile industry, marine transport as
well as aviation industry. In this study, the focus will be on the Australian aviation industry and
the initiatives taken by the airline companies to raise awareness on sustainability among the
airlines employees as well as among the passengers. Apart from that, the study will also
emphasize on the measures taken by the companies for carbon offsetting. By analyzing relevant

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secondary information about the initiatives implemented by the airlines, the paper will assess the
effectiveness of the measures. In other words, whether the level of carbon emission has
decreased due to the measures taken, and while more passengers and the employees are
following the sustainable practices will be investigated through this study. The expected outcome
of the study will help to understand the scopes for further improvement in the measures for
increasing the effectiveness of the sustainable initiatives by the Australian aviation industry. If it
is found from the study that the sustainable practices are not raising the awareness among people
and if the level of carbon offsetting is not as expected, then further measures can be developed
on the basis of the research findings for developing more efficient programmes.
The limitation of this study is the constraint of reaching out to an appropriate population
as well as a proper sample size to collect primary data. The aviation industry of Australia
includes multiple international and low budget airlines. The volume of passengers is also
extremely huge. Hence, the size of the concerned population is not easy to determine unless the
scope of data collection is narrowed down. Furthermore, the sustainable practices adopted by
different airlines depend on their capital resources and investment capacities. Therefore,
selecting a particular case study airline and obtaining specific information from that airline
would require much secondary research for only getting an idea about the scale of sustainable
initiatives taken by the airline. However, due to time limitation, this extensive research is not
possible. Therefore, a broader secondary research method is chosen for the study for having an
overall view of sustainability practices in the Australian aviation industry.

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References
Air Transport Action Group (ATAG). (2020). Fact sheet 2: Aviation and climate change.
Retrieved 30 March 2020, from https://aviationbenefits.org/downloads/fact-sheet-2-
aviation-and-climate-change/
Becken, S., & Mackey, B. (2017). What role for offsetting aviation greenhouse gas emissions in
a deep-cut carbon world?. Journal of Air Transport Management, 63, 71-83.
Braun, V., Clarke, V., Hayfield, N., & Terry, G. (2019). Thematic analysis. Handbook of
research methods in health social sciences, 843-860.
Feng, J. C., Yan, J., Yu, Z., Zeng, X., & Xu, W. (2018). Case study of an industrial park toward
zero carbon emission. Applied Energy, 209, 65-78. DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.10.069
Geissdoerfer, M., Savaget, P., Bocken, N. M., & Hultink, E. J. (2017). The Circular Economy–A
new sustainability paradigm?. Journal of cleaner production, 143, 757-768. DOI:
10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.12.048
Govia, I., Guell, C., Unwin, N., & Wadende, P. (2019). Air travel for global health: flying in the
face of sustainable development?. The Lancet, 394(10211), 1786-1788. DOI:
10.1016/S0140-6736(19)32680-7
Higham, J., Cohen, S. A., Cavaliere, C. T., Reis, A., & Finkler, W. (2016). Climate change,
tourist air travel and radical emissions reduction. Journal of Cleaner Production, 111,
336-347. DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.10.100

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Schäfer, A. W., Evans, A. D., Reynolds, T. G., & Dray, L. (2016). Costs of mitigating CO 2
emissions from passenger aircraft. Nature Climate Change, 6(4), 412-417.
Vaughan, A. (2019). UN climate change summit. New Scientist, 243(3249), 6. DOI:
10.1016/s0262-4079(19)31788-9
Woiceshyn, J., & Daellenbach, U. (2018). Evaluating inductive vs deductive research in
management studies. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An
International Journal. DOI: 10.1108/QROM-06-2017-1538
Zheng, J., Qiao, H., & Wang, S. (2017). The Effect of Carbon Tax in Aviation Industry on the
Multilateral Simulation Game. Sustainability, 9(7), 1247. DOI: 10.3390/su9071247

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Major Secondary data sources
Atsb.gov.au. (2020). ATSB National Aviation Occurrence Database options. Retrieved 30 March
2020, from https://www.atsb.gov.au/avdata/naod/
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2020). Census | Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Retrieved
30 March 2020, from https://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/D3310114.nsf/Home/Census?
OpenDocument&ref=topBar
bitre.gov.au. (2020). Aviation Statistics. Retrieved 30 March 2020, from
https://bitre.gov.au/statistics/aviation/index.aspx
Tourism Research Australia. (2020). Publications | Tourism Research Australia. Retrieved 30
March 2020, from https://www.tra.gov.au/data-and-research
Tourism Australia. (2020). Aviation - Corporate - Tourism Australia. Retrieved 30 March 2020,
from http://www.tourism.australia.com/en/markets-and-stats/aviation.html