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British Airways has announced plans to build Europe's first bio-jet fuel plant and aims to run its fleet on the more sustainable fuel from 2014. It claims the reduction in carbon emissions would be equivalent to taking 48,000 cars off the road per year.

BA will work with American bio-fuel firm Solena Group to build a self-contained plant which will have the capacity to convert 500,000 tonnes of waste a year in 16m gallons of jet fuel. The airline says it has signed an agreement to buy all the fuel produced by the Solena plant. The project will create up to 1,200 jobs.

The firm's chief executive Willie Walsh said the partnership with Solena would bring the airline closer to achieving its target of halving net carbon emissions by 2050.

Air travel currently accounts for at least six per cent of the UK's total carbon dioxide emissions, but the Department for Transport estimates that this could rise to a third of all emissions by 2050 if the demand for air travel continues to increase at its current rate.

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