How do you offset a flight properly?
Short answer: by removing the CO₂, not promising to. For €23 per flight hour, your flight's full global warming impact is physically removed from the atmosphere and durably stored for over 100 years, with public registry proof within one month. We tested it on our own holiday. Here is exactly how it went.
Our 7-hour round trip to Italy
In February, my husband and I booked a holiday to Italy. The trip was amazing. The flying, we knew, was the biggest climate cost of the whole holiday.
So before we flew, I went to our own store, chose Flight Carbon Removal, set the duration to 7 hours for the round trip, and checked out. It took about two minutes. Then we packed.
One month later, the email arrived: my removal had been retired on my behalf in the Puro.earth public registry, with a retirement statement carrying my order number. I recorded the whole thing, from purchase to proof, in a short video you can watch here: How my flight emissions were removed, with proof (YouTube).
On the trip we also took a walk-on ferry twice and drove a rental car for about 400 km, so back home I removed those too. A few more minutes, a few more euros.
How much CO₂ does one flight hour emit?
At Remove Carbon Today, we calculate 115 kg of CO₂e per hour flown in economy. That is a deliberately complete number with three parts: the CO₂ from the fuel actually burned, the additional warming effects of flying at altitude (such as contrails and nitrogen oxides), and the upstream emissions from producing and delivering the fuel. Check the Flight Carbon Removal product page for the detailed calculation.
Many flight calculators count only the first part, which is why their numbers look smaller. But to neutralise the full global warming effect of flying, we cover it all.
For our Italy round trip: 7 hours × 115 kg = 805 kg of CO₂e. Not small. But entirely removable.
Is this the same as a traditional flight offset?
No, and the difference matters. Traditional offsets usually pay someone to avoid or reduce emissions in the future, a promise whose delivery you can rarely verify. What we sell has already happened: certified removal partners have converted plant waste into biochar through pyrolysis, locking the carbon away from the atmosphere for over 100 years, and Puro.earth has verified and issued the removal credit before you pay a cent. Your purchase retires that credit in your name. So when you offset your flight with us, you are not funding a promise. You are claiming a removal that already exists.
What does the proof look like?
Within one month of purchase, you receive an email with a link to the retirement record in the Puro.earth public registry, showing your removal retired on your order number. You can also verify every retirement we have ever made, order numbers and registry links included, in our public removal tracker. Mine from the Italy trip is there among them.
What does it cost to remove your flight emissions?
€23 per flight hour in economy. A 2-hour European hop is €46 to clean up fully. Our 7-hour Italy round trip was €161, roughly what we spent on our anniversary dinner for two in Naples. Flights are hard to avoid. Cleaning up after them is not.