A Robust Approach to Aviation Sustainability

Generating a sustainability strategy within aviation is particularly difficult. Through business travel budgets, aviation is an industry that uniquely touches almost every other industry and is an active interest for corporate and personal decarbonization goals. The heightened scrutiny that the industry faces makes the need for an impactful and defensible sustainability approach even more critical. But how do you generate a defensible strategy when sustainability can just draw more criticism?

Without a clear near-term solution or perfect long-term solution, crafting a robust sustainability strategy is something that requires a broader and more multi-faceted approach than a decarbonization plan for other industries. The industry has embraced a few pillars of sustainability, and the key to an impactful and robust strategy is to embrace each pillar.

Today, Tomorrow, and the Future

Electric and hydrogen aircraft present a promise for the future, but their nascent technologies and limited ranges restrict technology even by 2050 to likely shorter-range missions. At the best case, maybe a third of the industry’s fuel burn, and thus CO2 emissions (higher when considering non-CO2 impacts), could be addressed through alternative propulsion methods. 

New fuels, predominantly sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) will provide drop-in fuels that recycle carbon already in the atmosphere, either through direct capture or biomass sequestration, to create jet fuel. SAF presents one of the broadest decarbonization opportunities with pathways to net zero emissions (different than the true zero emissions possible through hydrogen or electric propulsion) over the coming decade, with drop-in capabilities across the entire existing JetA burning fleet—about 98% of emissions. Because of the long life most aircraft will live, the average retirement age for an airframe is 40+ years, the planes we are flying today will still be flying in 2050, so SAF presents a solution that aircraft today will be able to use.

However, it will still take years and decades to ramp up the supply of SAF to quantities that will make a significant impact across the entire industry. While a single flight footprint could be reduced by 25% with the blended SAF available today, with less than 0.1% of total fuel production available as SAF, the impact will be very small across the entire industry for years. Moreover, many pathways for SAF may not be the most sustainable and will draw criticism about the impact on local environments, food, land supply, and energy consumption. SAF will be a very powerful tool, but it may not be a perfect solution.

Finally, while carbon offsets can be subject to much criticism, they present the only opportunity for aviation to be carbon neutral today. Carbon offsets align funding with cheaper decarbonizing initiatives outside of aviation. Reducing one metric ton of CO2 from using SAF is much more expensive than reducing one metric ton from the conversion of a coal-powered grid to a wind-powered grid, on a per metric ton basis. Offsets allow us to claim carbon neutrality today while aligning funding with some of the largest needs for decarbonization—areas such as electricity generation, which is about 30% of global emissions and preventing deforestation—about 20% of global emissions. These areas account for 10 to 15 times the footprint of aviation as a whole.

Offsets are not the long-term solution, but they are a powerful short-term mechanism to help decarbonize other sectors. Remember, in a global initiative, one metric ton reduced is one metric reduced, no matter the source, and advances the global progress towards reducing our environmental impacts. In a sense, they flatten the emissions curve, buying us time against our carbon budget cap—the maximum emissions we can emit before a 1.5-degree or 2-degree warming impact becomes inevitable, triggering potentially irreversible impacts. This buys us more time to ramp up SAF production, a solution for tomorrow that is more impactful and longer-term, and develop new propulsion technologies, the solution of the future.

The best sustainability strategy is one that incorporates everything mentioned so far. Offsets demonstrate that action is being taken today, investing, or purchasing SAF shows a commitment to developing in-sector solutions, and supporting research and development enables even better true zero-carbon solutions. Showing action today while supporting the solutions of tomorrow and the future, is the best way to advance a strong sustainability strategy.

Aligning Voluntary Initiatives to Meet Regulatory Needs

There is one step further that can be taken to make an even more effective strategy, and that is understanding where certain regulations will impact your business so that a strategy like the one above can utilize specific solutions that will meet regulatory requirements. For example, larger or certain European operators will be subject to environmental schemes that use offsets as a compliance mechanism, like CORSIA. Using CORSIA-eligible offsets and aligning calculation methods with those used under these schemes is a first step to developing synergies between a voluntary and regulatory compliance strategy.

The next may be using SAF, which is eligible for claiming under these different regulatory schemes. Ensuring that a procurement policy aligns with these requirements can help reduce the net cost of using SAF while reducing, or even eliminating certain compliance costs.

Finally, there is a huge influx of government support for research and development in the aviation space, aligning private funding to meet certain public-private match requirements, can increase the impact of private funds and help advance some of the most pressing issues for the industry.

Especially as financial regulation introduces new disclosure requirements for companies and sustainability becomes a required component of any business, having a sustainability strategy is no longer optional. However, as we become more educated and understand the pros and cons of each solution, we have to be diligent about how we construct our strategies, particularly within aviation. When rightly crafted though, a successful strategy can address regulatory requirements, be defensible against criticism, and reduce expenses while truly and meaningfully pushing the bar on long-term aviation sustainability efforts.

When you’re ready, 4AIR is here as a resource to assist with implementing a sustainability program that’s right for you and your goals. Visit 4AIR at www.4air.aero to learn more.

4AIR 

4AIR is the first and only sustainability solutions program dedicated to aviation. Its industry-first framework seeks to address climate impacts of all types and provides a simplified and verifiable path for the aviation industry to achieve meaningful aircraft emissions counteraction and reduction.

 4AIRs comprehensive turnkey solutions for aviation are easily incorporated into operations of varying sizes and missions. This approach makes reporting on metrics as part of ESG (environmental, social, governance) initiatives simplified and aligns with industry standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.

 All carbon credits through 4AIR are quantified and verified through the most respected and international leading bodies that issue and register credits, including the American Carbon Registry, Climate Action Reserve, Verified Carbon Standard (VERRA) and The Gold Standard. Additionally, end-of-year commitment audits are independently verified by third parties. 4AIR also serves the demand signal working groups with the World Economic Forum’s Clean Skies for Tomorrow Coalition.

Learn more at: https://www.4air.aero/