Driving towards a circular economy

To drive waste reduction, a circular approach must be adopted right at the design and procurement stage of the supply chain.

Embedding a waste minimisation culture throughout Air New Zealand is fundamental to reducing our waste and improving our diversion of waste from landfill. To do this, Air New Zealand has developed a new Circular Economy strategy and targets for 2025-2027.

Find out more in the driving towards a circular economy section of our 2024 Annual Report.

Single-use cups – a case study

Single-use cups have become a symbol of waste, using up natural resources, filling up landfills, and contributing to emissions. 

We have now removed single-use cups from the majority of our lounges. This will eliminate nearly one million single-use cups from our waste stream each year.

In March 2024, Air New Zealand also ran six single-use cup free Domestic trial flights where we encouraged passengers to bring their own cup and provided reusable cups onboard. Around 10 percent of customers brought a reusable cup, and there was overwhelming support to move to a reusable cup offering. We will be continuing our work to understand how we can reduce inflight single-use cups.

Customers can also do their bit and bring their own reusable cups when they fly with the us.