CAPA – Centre for Aviation (CAPA) and Envest Global have partnered since 2020 to build a comprehensive database of airline carbon emissions and benchmark the performance of the world's major airlines, in order to understand their relative emissions quantity and intensity across both passenger and freight transport.
The first CAPA-Envest Global Airline Sustainability and Benchmarking Report was launched in 2021, offering a comprehensive, independent, data-driven evaluation and rating of the sustainability performance of the world's largest airlines.
This 2026 report profiles the top 100 airlines and airline groups globally by seat capacity. Alongside a broad range of aviation metrics, the dataset captures each airline's reported use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), providing insight into the progress being made — both by individual airlines and by the industry as a whole — towards the 2050 net-zero goal.
For the first time, this year's report also introduces a dedicated airport sustainability assessment, profiling the top 100 airports globally. This new addition extends our benchmarking approach beyond airlines to the airports that support them, reflecting the growing recognition that meaningful progress towards net zero requires action across the full aviation value chain; not just from airlines alone. We believe this data offers valuable insight for stakeholders across the aviation value chain, and that it goes beyond many existing self-reporting tools in both rigour and independence.
This report aims to:
• Provide an objective, consistent, data-driven assessment of the sustainability performance of individual airlines and airline groups;
• Compare the relative carbon impact of each airline across a range of KPIs;
• Rate and rank each airline's sustainability performance relative to its peers, based on a weighted composite of multiple sustainability KPIs.
To deliver these aims we have compiled sustainability, operational, and financial performance data for the 100 largest airlines and airline groups by seat capacity, alongside a parallel assessment of the top 100 airports by sustainability performance.
The data used in this report was compiled by CAPA and Envest Global from publicly available sources, including airlines' and airports' statutory reporting disclosures and information published on their websites.
All data can be traced back to its original source and date of release via the digital audit trail functionality within the Envest Global Data Portal.