Cutting our impact: Collective travel and alternative drives for low-carbon mobility

We believe that everyone should be enabled to reduce their carbon footprint when traveling, no matter what their economic status is. Here, collective means of transport can play a huge role.

When you choose collective travel, you're already making a difference. It's a small change in habit with a big environmental payoff.

Let’s share some figures: an average FlixBus in Europe emits 28.1 g CO₂ per person-kilometer. This is at least five times less CO₂ than a private car and 10 times less CO₂ than a plane. On top of that, buses almost match the environmental performance of intercity trains, which makes them a great travel alternative, especially in regions that are sparsely connected by rail.

Based on these data¹ (more information here), Flix passengers avoided 1.5 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions globally in 2025 just by choosing our services over other means like cars and planes.

As you can see, choosing the right travel solution can help you reduce your impact to a large extent.

Customer's climate contribution

Since 2017 until April 2026, we have partnered with the environmental NGO atmosfair to provide our customers the opportunity to support, with a voluntary donation, verified climate projects in the Global South aiming at reducing CO₂ from the atmosphere equivalent to the estimated CO₂ emissions of their journeys. Part of the climate contribution supported transformative projects that create positive environmental and social impacts in the regions where Flix operates. In the past ten years, Flix passengers have contributed to the reduction of 112,399 tonnes of CO₂ through the Rwanda Efficient Cookstoves Project, certified by Gold Standard and UN CDM^2.

From August 2025 to April 2026, passengers’ contributions supported two climate projects in India. The first project promotes efficient cookstoves that use 65% less firewood, significantly reducing CO₂ emissions while also helping to prevent deforestation and improve indoor air quality. The second project focuses on producing biochar from agricultural waste, enabling the permanent removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere for up to 1,000 years, as certified by Carbon Standard International (CSI)³.

As the first company worldwide, FlixBus is testing electric coaches on scheduled long-distance routes.

Future of Mobility Fund

The Future of Mobility Fund was set up by Flix and atmosfair in 2017 to enhance sustainable mobility initiatives in the communities where Flix operates. Projects are chosen for their emission reduction potential and social impact.

From the lab onto the road: here's how you help us speed up fleet transformation

Together with our partners, we strive to accelerate the transition to full decarbonization and help anyone reduce their impact on the planet, while staying easy on the wallet.

Here, one big challenge is that zero-emission technologies are hardly scalable for long-distance buses as of today, and sometimes low-emission technologies also pose a challenge. Therefore, while we engage with primary industry partners to enable scalability of these solutions tomorrow, we try to limit our impact already today with cleaner alternatives to Diesel.

Some of these pilot projects have been enabled with your support. With your climate contributions, you have already helped us:

Pioneer the first long-distance electric bus in Germany
Pioneer our first biogas-powered buses in the Benelux region and Scandinavia
Bring ten buses equipped with solar panels on the road in five countries
Investigate fuel cell technology for hydrogen-powered long-distance buses

Check out our dedicated page if you want to know more about our fleet transformation projects, including those enabled also by our passengers’ contributions until April 2026!

Other projects that have become reality thanks to your climate contribution:

17 e-cargo bikes delivered to NGOs like Foodsharing, Caritas, and Tafel for food distribution
32 climate awareness classes for schoolchildren across Europe
A solar power system and plug-in hybrid vehicle for SOS Children’s Village in Sarajevo

And we walk the talk ourselves!

Flix also calculates all our employees' business travel emissions worldwide and financially contributes to the climate project “Clean Cookstoves” in Rwanda as well as the Future of Mobility Fund. You can find our own contribution certificate here.

The three principles of our climate strategy: Avoid, Reduce, Contribute

The importance of joining forces

We have committed to the Science Based Target initiative and submitted near-term targets for emission reduction to achieve by 2032.
The SBTi validated these near-term targets in April 2024, thereby acknowledging that our strategy is in line with global climate goals.

On this journey towards decarbonization, we follow a holistic climate strategy that rests on three principles: Avoid, Reduce, and Contribute.

We help our passengers avoid CO₂ emissions by providing them with collective solutions that have a lower emission factor per passenger-km compared to other modes⁴.
We enhance fleet transformation with alternative drives and fuels from battery electric to biogas to reduce the CO₂ emissions of our operations.
Despite these efforts, some emissions remain unavoidable — for now. And that's why we cooperate with passengers, environmental NGOs, and industry stakeholders so that we can contribute to global climate goals together. We join forces with first-tier industrial partners to enable the scale-up of low and zero-emission solutions for long-distance transport.

How we ensure credibility and compliance

We believe climate contributions must meet the highest standards of transparency and accountability. That’s why we follow these principles:

No misleading claims: we do not advertise trips as “carbon neutral” or “climate neutral” based solely on contributions. This aligns with the EU consumer protection law and the upcoming Green Claims Directive.
Certified projects only: until April 2026 we have worked exclusively with atmosfair, whose projects meet strict standards such as Gold Standard,UN CDM as well as Carbon Standards International for removal projects.
Full transparency: all methodologies for emission calculations, project audits, and climate impacts are publicly documented and updated annually.
Impact reporting: we regularly monitor projects impact in collaboration with atmosfair to show how and where your Future of Mobility Fund contributions are used.

¹On average, traveling with FlixBus in Europe results in 28.1 grams of CO₂ emitted per passenger per kilometre. Multiplied by the distance of your trip, this gives the total estimated emissions for your journey. The emission factors used in this analysis were calculated using parameter assumptions (Well-to-Wheel per mass, lower heating value, and density) from ISO 14083 (EU Diesel values), combined with average fuel consumption values obtained from FlixBus partners and applied to the respective operational region. These emission factors were then multiplied by the weighted average prices of reducing (e.g. 96.5%) and removing (e.g. 3.5%) one tonne of CO₂, to determine a price per passenger kilometre. This figure can subsequently be multiplied by the distance of your trip to calculate the total cost of the climate contribution associated with your journey's emissions.

²Please see the validation report available here: CDM-PoA-RCPV-FORM.

³Certification documents are available here: https://global-c-registry.org/project-view/1024.

⁴For more information, see Flix’s 2025 Avoided Emissions Methodology.