The greening of our skies

Much concern is focused on the environmental damage caused by air travel. Hence, airlines in recent years have been quite conscientious on the amount of their carbon footprints in the skies, as their primary objective in their social responsibility agenda. As a traveler, one is always assuaged in the knowledge that one’s airline of choice is a “green company.” I am therefore sharing with you some updates on the greening of our skies by laudable airlines that do not hesitate to take on more in their overhead expense, in order to minimize their carbon footprints.

Delta Air Lines, for one, announced last month that they have made it to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for North America – one of only four (4) international airlines considered as “Sustainability Leaders” in the annual survey of the Dow Jones Indexes. 

There are 143 corporations in the Dow Jones list for North America. 2,500 corporations were reviewed to create the sustainability indexes, upholding only the highest standards in assessing the business entities’ economic, corporate and social thrusts, including risk management, climate change mitigation, supply chain standards and labor practices.

“Being named to the North America index underscores Delta’s commitment to sustainable practices,’ said Vice President for Safety, Security & Compliance Ken Hylander. 

“Our people make the difference in taking steps to reduce our environmental impact while increasing the volunteer and charitable work we do in the cities where we fly and our employees live.”

Delta Air Lines joins SkyTeam alliance partners Air France-KLM (in the DJSI list since 2004), together with All Nippon Airways and Qantas Airways, to make up the Sustainability Leaders category in the airline industry.

Meanwhile, greening efforts are being undertaken by Cathay Pacific and Qatar Airways. CX is in the process of finalizing talks with potential partners for a steady supply of sustainable biofuels.

CX Head of Environmental Affairs Mark Watson pointed out that more than one supplier is needed. “We are considering everything, including being an end user and buying the biofuel directly from a fuel supplier, or going upstream and being more involved in production. I also see us potentially working in the future with a number of suppliers. The biofuel market is still very niche with boutique companies involved at present, but I am sure that we will see some consolidation in the future.”

Fruition to the talks may be seen towards the end of this year. Three things are critical: availability, sustainability and price. 

“Biofuel suppliers face a number of challenges at present,” Watson said. “Including a shortage of available feedstocks given the demand and the geography of supply with production primarily being in North America and Europe. But with sources of supply coming online closer to Hong Kong, including China and Singapore, we are starting to see the development of a more global supply chain.

Biofuel is currently more expensive than jet fuel. But with the increasing price of the latter, biofuel is becoming more attractive to the airline industry. Boeing estimates the crossover price between jet fuel and biofuel can hit US$90.00 per barrel. By then, biofuel will have become cost effective.

Watson concluded: “The aviation biofuel market is developing rapidly and we are committed to the introduction of sustainable biofuels into our fleet. It is one of the key strategic steps we can take to enhance Cathay Pacific’s commitment to sustainable development and reduce our climate impact.”

Qatar Airways, for their part, is in partnership with Airbus, Qatar Petroleum, Qatar University Science & Technology Park, and Rolls Royce for the Qatar Advanced Biofuel Platform (QABP), a consortium “to develop the first large-scale algae bio-jet fuel value chain in the world.”

“The project is now developed from lab-scale to the demonstrator-scale. This part of the project will take 18 months to put in place, with a substantial multi-million dollar investment.

The QABP is the first large-scale production of algae livestock to be transformed into bio-jet fuel in the world.”

Multinational corporations are likewise beating the clock in coming up with some sustainable and affordable sources of bio-jet fuel in Mainland China.

Think Green. Let’s start greening our skies!