Green Aviation 2012

Green aviation is a huge opportunity for the world to demonstrate that sustainability is achievable and leads to progress and improvement is the way society and the economy operates. However the aviation industry is very set in its ways and chooses to be blind to the possibilities. It is inevitable that the industry defends its future but this is counterproductive when the focus is on the short-term commercial imperative to survive in an industry with tight margins and huge sunk costs.

The industry is doing all it reasonably can within the parameters set by society. The majority of passengers like to fly cheaply; governments get concerned that change may hit adversely the economy; and shareholders want the management to increase the value of their shares. It is a tough sell to convince passengers that green aviation will cost more at the outset as the price of driving change. It is tough to persuade the government that championing policy that will be unpopular in the short term is the right course of action. It is tougher still to explain to shareholders that the companies they own could become worthless unless the management start to invest in the transition to green aviation.

I attended Green Aviation 2012, an event hosted by Imperial College, London. In open questions I asked Steve Ridgway, Chief Executive of Virgin Atlantic what he thought would be the effect of world politicians changing the policy framework to allow taxation of aviation fuel. He replied that it would destroy the industry. That is the perspective of the current key industry players with short-term financial targets to meet. The fact is that to deliver a better and greener aviation industry requires that the tax exemption on aviation fuel is removed. Resisting this truth is trapping the industry in 20th century practices flying 20th century aircraft.

The main plank of the aviation industry’s response to the challenge of green aviation is an aspiration to reduce net carbon emissions by 50% by 2050 with respect to a 2006 baseline. This gets good press coverage but the key word used is ‘net’, a word often omitted when the ‘target’ is discussed. The industry expects actual emissions to quadruple over the same period. How could the net and gross figures be so different? According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) they have illustrated how this could work with 80% of aviation fuel being biofuel by 2050.

There are many reasons why the aviation biofuel aspiration is disingenuous ranging from the effect on food production of switching agricultural capacity to the growing demand for biofuel from other sectors. From a straightforward commercial perspective, Charles Cameron of BP gave a very informative talk to explain the difficulties of delivering biojet fuel in quantity to the industry. It is clear from a range of perspectives outside the aviation industry that its biofuel aspirations are not feasible.

A friend of mine, on hearing that I was at Green Aviation 2012, said that ‘green aviation’ had to be an oxymoron. I was left thinking that perhaps he was right because aviation is so stuck in the past, so locked down by outdated policy that it cannot be green any time soon.

The organisers of Green Aviation 2012 should be applauded for running a great event and setting up a forum to start a discussion but there is a long way to go before we will see real progress.