ICAO has published a list of 670 operators that, according to submissions from its member nations, will be subject to CORSIA (The Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation)—with many leading business aircraft operators included.

“CORSIA Airplane Operator to State Attributions” includes the likes of NetJets, EJM and Flexjet in the U.S.;  VistaJet, which is listed under Malta; Qatar Executive under Qatar; and several well-known charter operators in San Marino, including TAG and Luxaviation. Also falling under the auspices of the scheme are Execujet (Switzerland); several in the UAE, such as Falcon Aviation, Execujet ME, and Royal Flight; and NetJets Europe under Spain.

According to accredited verification body Verifavia, the CORSIA reporting and verification season will start soon. "All operators flying international routes with an estimated annual CO₂ emissions above 10,000 tonnes should now have their Emission Monitoring Plan (EMP) approved by their administration and should be in the process of monitoring their flights, fuel consumption and aircraft emissions since January 2019,” said the company. It added: “As the 2019 monitoring period is coming to an end, operators should now engage a verification body in order to start the verification process as soon as possible to ensure a streamlined compliance process.”

Operators need a valid certificate of accreditation before entering into an agreement with a verifier. Reporting of consolidated data and calculated emissions is done using a standardized Emissions Report (ER) template developed by ICAO in Excel.

Once the ER is verified, both the operator and the verifier independently submit the verified ER and the associated Verification Report to the operator's CORSIA Administering Authority by May 31, 2020.

CORSIA takes the average level of CO2 emissions from international aviation covered by the scheme between 2019 and 2020 as the basis for carbon-neutral growth from 2020, against which emissions in future years are compared.

In any year from 2021 when international aviation CO2 emissions covered by the scheme exceed the average baseline emissions of 2019 and 2020, this difference represents the sector's offsetting requirements for that year. 

CORSIA is being implemented in phases starting with the participation of states on a voluntary basis, followed by participation of all states except those exempted from offsetting requirements. The pilot phase (from 2021 through 2023) and first phase (from 2024 through 2026) applies to states that have volunteered to participate in the scheme; while the second phase (from 2027 through 2035) applies to all states that have an individual share of international aviation activities in revenue-tonne kilometers (RTKs) in the year 2018 above 0.5 percent of total RTKs or whose cumulative share in the list of states from the highest to the lowest amount of RTKs reaches 90 percent of total RTKs, except Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs), unless they volunteer to participate in this phase.

A route will be covered by the scheme if both states connecting the route are participating in the scheme.