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Air New Zealand is beefing up its green credentials with a carbon offset scheme it hopes will meet growing corporate demand.
Passengers will be able to purchase credits, initially from TrustPower's Tararua wind farm and donate to an environmental trust the airline is backing with a $450,000 donation.
Air New Zealand has taken a cautious approach to implementing an offset scheme, previously saying other carriers' voluntary contributions from passengers had been as low as 2 per cent.
With the introduction of the scheme passengers flying around and from New Zealand can now help fund anything from a native bush reforestation project in Hawkes Bay, a wind farm in China, eucalyptus planting in Australia to a rubbish to methane project in Palmerston North.
Air New Zealand passengers will be asked when they book online to contribute $4.50 for an Auckland-Wellington return flight, $13.70 - Christchurch to Sydney and $88.10 - Auckland to Los Angeles.
Chief executive Rob Fyfe said other airlines' schemes had not had great uptake.
"We've been very clear about the offsets we're buying so people can see 'when I buy an offset it's going into an offset here in NZ' which is the wind farm project.
"We're trying to create a connection that we think will get a much better uptake than these airlines overseas where you just pay some money and you don't know where it's going."
House of Travel, which has about 30 per cent of the travel market, says up to 80 per cent of its big corporate clients want to know about airlines' environment schemes and would book accordingly.
Many companies and Government departments now had a requirement to move toward carbon neutrality so offset schemes were increasingly important.
Retail director Brent Thomas said Air New Zealand's move was a "great first step".
The airline's Air New Zealand Environment Trust is expected to be running by May and will accept donations from passengers which the airline expects to reach several million dollars a year.
The first project will be an 85,000 native tree reforestation project at Mangarara Station near Havelock North.
Pacific Blue introduced a carbon offset scheme around the middle of last year and says around 10 per cent of travellers contribute. Among the schemes the $3.10 contribution from an Auckland-Wellington flight funds is a methane gas plant at a landfill in Palmerston North.
Cathay Pacific passengers can help contribute to a high-tech wind farm near Shanghai after the introduction of its scheme last December.
New Zealand manager David Figgins said it was "early days" but there was a growing realisation among passengers about the the impact of carbon emission.
"Schemes such as ours are in their infancy but as the public understands and accepts their roles and responsibilities about carbon emissions, environmental programmes such as Fly Greener will only increase in number and importance."
Yesterday's announcement by Air New Zealand is part of many initiatives the airline has underway to tackle growing threats from European governments wanting to impose pollution taxes, to protests against the aviation sector from green groups and soaring fuel bills.
The airline is working on a biofuel project with Boeing and Rolls-Royce which Fyfe said is nearing a decision on the type of fuel that will be run in one engine of a jumbo from Auckland towards the end of the year. Virgin Atlantic used a biofuel blend on a test flight from London to Amsterdam last month.
Much of the Air New Zealand research was concentrated on an oilseed crop, jatropha, a woody plant that can grow on barren, marginal land; and into algae, high in oil content and able to grow on sewage ponds and in seawater.
Fyfe said the airline saw biofuel as a huge area of opportunity. The airline aimed to have the world's youngest, most fuel-efficient fleet within five years with the new Boeing 787-9 and purchase of more Boeing 777s.
