Japan Airlines might be renting clothes to passengers, but there are more effective ways for airlines to cut emissions

Japan Airlines is getting creative with reducing the carbon emissions associated with their flights, but how effective and impactful is it, really? News of their latest program offering rental wardrobes to anyone taking an overseas flight deduces that less luggage means less overall weight on planes, and thus less fuel is required to fly. 

The program, called “Any Wear, Anywhere,” will be available on a trial basis from now until August 2024 to anyone flying to Japan from abroad. It’s pretty simple: Instead of bringing your own clothes, just pack personal items like toiletries and underwear and pick up a full wardrobe of seasonal “casual” or “smart casual” clothes to wear in-country. Packages start at USD$28 for three tops and two bottoms for two weeks, which is less expensive than checking a bag.

The Any Wear, Anywhere website advertises a 7.5 kilograms reduction in CO2 emissions from a flight from New York to Tokyo for each person who uses the service, which the airline estimates would reduce the weight of their luggage by 10 kilograms. They compare this to not running a hair dryer for ten minutes a day for 78 days. If that sounds like a bit of an underwhelming metric, that’s because small changes like lightening luggage can really only lead to marginal gains, at best.

The idea has merits besides its impact on carbon emissions, though. For one thing, the clothes available for rental through Any Wear, Anywhere have all been sourced from overstock apparel or used clothes bound for the landfill. A relatively small program can only redirect so much of the excess created by the notoriously wasteful fast fashion industry, but something is still better than nothing. 

Depending on the traveler’s needs, renting a wardrobe at the final destination could offer appealing conveniences completely separate from environmental impact. Instead of choosing between the inconveniences of waiting for (and potentially losing) a checked bag or hauling a heavy carry-on between connecting flights, paring down luggage to just the essentials could make for a less hassled experience. Of course, it’d work best for people on business trips, with certain body types, or anyone who isn’t overly worried about a perfect fit and unique style.

We’re not going to hate on a creative solution to cut back air travel’s climate impacts, particularly if it also lets us skip the wait at the checked baggage carousel. But solutions that are good for PR often get a lot of play, and aren’t on the scale necessary to address the climate crisis. That will require industry-wide changes in practices and technology, including developing greener fuels, more efficient—and potentially even electric—aircraft, and continuing to make large investments in carbon offsets and direct air capture (fraught and complex as those can be).

In the meantime, there’s nothing wrong with offering travelers new services that will potentially be convenient as well as reduce a portion of their trip’s climate impact, as long as those individual, optional changes don’t replace large-scale solutions. And anyone trying to keep their personal impact as small as possible can do more than just pack lighter or rent a wardrobe on arrival. Staying at environmentally-conscious hotels or traveling by bus, train, or bike instead of renting a car to get around locally are other great ways to ease the impact of our travels.