Leaders See Need for More Buy-in on SAF
by Kerry Lynch (AIN Online) Heading into 2022, business aviation leaders have been encouraged about progress that has been and is being made on the sustainability front. But at the same time, industry leaders are aware that much work remains to be done not only in the advancement of initiatives such as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) but also in attracting the buy-in of aircraft operators.
During the most recent NBAA-BACE in Las Vegas last October, the leaders of NBAA, GAMA, and IBAC formally unveiled a new sustainability pledge: net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050. This builds on a series of goals the industry collectively established in 2009 to reduce carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2050, increase fuel efficiency by 2 percent per year from 2010 to 2020, and achieve carbon-neutral growth from 2020. Well on its way to making those earlier marks and, with a number of new technologies in the offing, the leaders of the associations expressed confidence that the new, bolder target could be reached.
Getting there will require advancements on multiple fronts. In the short term, SAF, coupled with carbon offset credits and book-and-claim, are viewed as the most immediate steps to get there. The book-and-claim process allows customers who wish to use SAF but are not in an area where it is available at the pump (in the U.S., mainly West Coast locations near SAF production facilities) to purchase the fuel and receive credit for it under the various emission accounting programs. The fuel is then dispensed into and ultimately burned by another aircraft elsewhere.
However, much of the business aviation community appears unsure. A JetNet IQ survey released during the National Air Transportation Association’s (NATA) Aviation Business Conference in November in Miami found that when asked whether they would seriously consider flying with SAF in the next 24 months, just 10.4 percent of the respondents in North America said they would “strongly agree” while another 20.4 percent said they “somewhat agree.” Moreover, 25.4 percent in North America said they would “strongly disagree.”
In Europe, which has been viewed as a leader on the sustainability front, the numbers appear only slightly better, with 11.5 percent saying they would “strongly agree,” 21.2 percent “somewhat agree,” and 17.3 percent “strongly disagree.”
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… Clay Lacy began carrying the fuel in April at its Southern California FBOs and has since sold less than 10,000 gallons.
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“I think we’re going to start to see greater adoption.”
Helping that is the fact that the price differential is narrowing. By November, the price differential was 56 cents more per gallon than conventional jet-A in Van Nuys for its 30 percent SAF blend.
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Ford von Weise, director and global head of aircraft finance at Citi Private Bank … warned that business aviation organizations face significant perception, regulatory, financing, and other risks if they don’t build a sustainability plan into their business model, and he noted his own institution is evaluating how it looks at risk. A piece of that is climate, environmental, and social risk management, he said and called SAF a key part of the solution to these risks.
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As for the regulatory front, Europe and the U.S. alike are moving towards broader environmental mandates with similar goals and an array of potential taxes, incentives, and research projects under discussion, according to GAMA director of government affairs Marc Ehudin, also speaking during the AIN sustainability forum in Dallas.
