12 / airline Sustainable sustainability sourcing
Passenger pressure Aviation’s path to net zero carbon emissions will take time but the pressure is on for tactical change to sustainable onboard products now if airline brands are to maintain their credibility with the consumer, says Julie Baxter
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esearch airline sustainability and at every turn you find initiatives and innovation around bio-fuels and carbon off-setting. You’ll find talk of electric and hydrogen aircraft alternatives and inspiring ways to implement change. There are even some hefty commitments and targets taking shape. The OneWorld Alliance of airlines has its Fly Green pledge; IATA has its #FlyNetZero – both working to net zero by 2050. But ask airlines specifically for comments on inflight sustainability – initiatives on cutting waste, switching to eco friendly onboard products, recycling, reusing, cutting weight and the response is, to put it mildly, patchy. Maybe this makes some sense. IATA estimates that 65% of the progress to net zero will come through Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF); 13% through new technologies, electric and hydrogen; 19% through offsets and carbon capture, and just 3% through infrastructure and operational efficiencies. Presumably inflight actions – catering and amenities – come under the operational efficiencies percentage, but read behind those stats and most of the discussion on that 3% is about onboardhospitality.com
better performance through revised air traffic navigation, retrofitting to lighten aircraft weight, and airport efficiencies. So how much difference does an inflight change make, and does it really matter? Could it help cut carbon 1%? 0.5%? Who actually knows? Has inflight service change even been included in these calculations? The answers to these are not yet clear. IATA has done some research into cabin waste and discovered (pre-pandemic) that on average every passenger created 1.43kilos of waste. 80% of waste came from the galley, 20% from the washrooms. It analysed galley waste and found 20% of that was untouched food and drink, 4% was unopened bottled water – all of it was headed to landfill or the incinerator thanks to the international catering waste regulations, designed to prevent the spread of animal disease which no longer really exists in many countries. Clearly there is a problem and it is only going to get worse. Current projections estimate that demand for air passenger journeys by 2050 could exceed 10 billion. On current trajectories, expected 2021-2050 carbon emissions would be approximately 21.2 gigatons of CO2, cabin waste
