As aviation continues to experience supply chain problems, the growing need to focus on sustainability might be eclipsed — but its importance for the future of commercial air travel is by no means diminished. We sat down with experts across the industry to scan the horizon for issues around sustainability and the supply chain.
“The ‘re-ramp-up’ with strained supply chains and quality issues in production are the main roadblock in further developing the sustainable aviation ecosystem,” Lukas Kaestner, cofounder of the Sustainable Aero Lab, tells us. “Drastically put: the industry is too busy in trying to deliver aircraft to thoroughly focus on sustainability right now. The pattern is that, at the end of the day, I fear that sustainability is still one of the fields that can get deprioritised. This needs to change if the industry wants to take net-zero aviation seriously.”
While there is much discussion of action within the industry, moving from words to deeds needs to accelerate — quickly.
“I see two main questions that remain,” Kaestner says. “One is the question of certification — for example, when it comes to the use of new materials in the interiors segment. You see many exciting ideas and concepts out there, but almost none are already certified and thus ready-to-install today. The other question is scalability. This relates to the traditional supply chains the same as to fuel developments such as sustainable aviation fuels. How can you scale sustainable solutions and what are the timelines of implementation? Again, we see a lot of publicly announced airline offtake agreements happening for SAF these days, but we don’t have the production capacities to back them up. With the current speed, we will therefore miss the targets.”
Indeed, sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) are perhaps the most critical part of the supply chain on which aviation’s sustainable future in the medium to long term depends.
Haldane Dodd, executive director of the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG), tells us that “the scale-up in SAF production is going to be a significant challenge anyway, but whilst I am confident that there is enough capital available and feedstocks to make this viable, the one element we are up against is time. We probably have the next 5–10 years only to ensure we are on the right trajectory for 2050 SAF deployment, so large scale and urgent investment is needed.”
Wider supply chains in global industry are also a concern as aviation is likely to need production plants for SAF, which Dodd estimates at roughly a thousand globally. So, too, are the skilled employees and the education-skills agenda across the entire decarbonisation spectrum, from designers to sustainable finance experts, analysts to project managers.
“As we look to hydrogen, either as a direct use in propulsion or a feedstock for power-to-liquid SAF, there is currently a real shortage of electrolysers needed for production,” Dodd notes. “Again: something that can be fixed, but that needs urgent attention as governments consider economy-wide hydrogen strategies.”
More widely, complexities will continue to arise around issues such as Scope 3 and 4 emissions information management, as well as carbon accounting — especially for embedded carbon.
Some of the challenges will have technological solutions, Kaestner predicts. “AI and data analytics have great potential especially for operations and MRO [maintenance, repair and overhaul]. If used smartly, there will be a lot of efficiency gains to be made, for example through predictive maintenance, digital twins, advanced connectivity or management and analysis of operations data. If used in the right way, this will result in fewer costs and less emissions for aviation.”
Kaestner sounds an alarm about the industry’s need to start taking action: “right now, the problem is not pressing enough for the industry, as cynical as it might sound. I feel that this will change [between now and] 2030, as aviation’s share of total emissions will rise significantly. Growth in air travel will eat the industry’s efficiency gains for breakfast, while other industries such as road transport will decarbonize at greater speeds. With it, the public and political pressures to find answers to the topic will grow. Our lack of action today will translate into additional costs in the future.”
Author: John Walton
Published: 3rd October 2024
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