Ensuring that the decarbonisation measures that aviation is taking to reach its net zero goals are credible has been a major challenge — not one unique to aviation, but one where aviation’s particular complexities as a high-emitting, hard-to-abate sector has seen them magnified. One organisation working with many airlines and other aviation industry groups to overcome these transparency and accountability challenges is the Science Based Targets initiative, and we sat down with its communications and operations coordinator Reed Grumann to learn more.
“The Science Based Targets initiative [SBTi] is a global body enabling businesses to set ambitious emissions reductions targets in line with the latest climate science,” Grumann explains. “The SBTi’s goal is to enable companies across the world to play their part in the fight against climate breakdown by supporting the global economy to halve emissions before 2030 and achieve net-zero before 2050.”
As a programme, the SBTi is a partnership between CDP (a nonprofit running a global environmental reporting and disclosure system), the United Nations Global Compact, the nonprofit World Resources Institute and the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Grumann explains that “the SBTi defines and promotes best practice in science-based target setting, offers resources and guidance to reduce barriers to adoption, and independently assesses and approves companies’ targets.”
At its essence, the approach aims to resolve the tension between rapid decarbonisation and industrial growth when corporations and sectors come to set believable and achievable targets.
In the commercial aviation context, the SBTi frames this question as asking “how much would the aviation sector’s average carbon intensity need to decrease in order to achieve Paris-aligned decarboniaation goals whilst also allowing for projected industry growth?”
By modelling the physical intensity of greenhouse gas reduction targets based on an underlying climate scenario and the realistic mitigation options open to a sector, the SBTi can suggest achievable goals — together with an annual emissions pathway that shows the glideslope towards emissions reduction by year if it wants to achieve a certain temperature outcome.
Crucially, Grumann says, “science-based targets show companies and financial institutions how much and how quickly they need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to prevent the worst effects of climate change in line with science. By guiding companies in science-based target setting, we enable them to tackle global warming while seizing the benefits and boosting their competitiveness in the transformation to a net-zero economy.”
The SBTi works across multiple sectors, from aluminium and financial institutions to cement, power and transport, including aviation. It produces science-based guidance for target setting, sector by sector, taking into account the specificities of each sector’s activity. The aviation sectoral guidance was led by the World Wide Fund for Nature with support from the nonprofit International Council for Clean Transportation and Boston Consulting Group. More than a dozen airlines, airline groups and academics were involved as part of the technical working group for the aviation sectoral guidance.
Five airlines and airline groups have so far set science-based targets according to the SBTi: Air New Zealand, Delta Air Lines, easyJet, the Lufthansa Group, and United Airlines.
Digital tools — and advanced measurement, reporting and verification — are critical to achieving net zero goals
“The SBTi encourages companies to make use of digital tools when gathering their GHG emission inventories and setting their targets,” Grumann explains, noting that the SBTi provides target-setting tools, resources, support, methodology and criteria to help industries — and individual corporations — achieve the goals they set.
“Digital tools can also enable increased transparency and accountability,” he notes. “The Science Based Targets initiative’s Progress Framework, which is currently under development, will advance our work on measurement, reporting and verification of science-based targets. This will apply to all SBTi companies, including those in the aviation sector.”
Measurement, reporting and verification — sometimes referred to as MRV — is one of the critical blockers to much of the decarbonisation work that needs to be done. At stake is the credibility of individual efforts and the progress that an industry is making as a whole, particularly in aviation as a hard-to-abate sector relying largely on the rampup of more sustainable aviation fuels and as-yet-undeveloped lower-carbon next-generation power sources like hydrogen.
The SBTi’s Progress Framework expands the organisation’s remit beyond target-setting to performance analysis against those targets. The goal, says the organisation is deliver “a standardised accountability mechanism and methodology to assess progress and achievement of science-based targets” and to “provide clarity to companies and financial institutions regarding what the SBTi considers best practice for tracking and reporting progress against approved targets for maximum transparency and comparability.”
Consulting with cross-sector expert advisory groups, the underpinning technical foundations will define principles, methodologies and details for the assessments. A new MRV standard will define the science-based criteria and recommendations around MRV, while the SBTi MRV protocol will cover assessment, incentives, reporting and disclosure of achievement by target.
With a fast-paced internal review, external review, public consultation and pilot phase planned, SBTi aims to have this framework complete by COP28 in Dubai in November-December 2023.
Beyond that in the aviation context, the SBTI is highlighting that more ambitious targets need to be set, with a tightening of target requirements by a full half a degree.
“On July 15th, 2022, the SBTi increased its minimum ambition to 1.5°C for Scope 1 and 2 emissions which restricts the usability of our aviation resources,” Grumann explains. “Thus, since July 15, we no longer accept new airline target submissions with a well below 2°C ambition. The SBTi is currently coordinating with the ICCT and the Mission Possible Partnership to enable a 1.5°C option for airline targets. The SBTi plans to update our target setting guidance to raise the level of ambition required from aviation companies. Future guidance will include a more ambitious 1.5°C pathway, as well as net-zero guidelines and criteria.”
Author: John Walton
Published: 3rd January 2023
;
