Written by Pippa Tregear, Lucinda Robinson, Benedikt Manigold
Cathay Pacific Airways and Sustainable Aviation
The impact of aviation
International Air traffic connects the world, transporting millions of passengers and moving millions of tonnes of freight. The industry employs (indirectly) an estimated 63 million people and contributes USD2.7 trillion to global GDP. By 2034, passenger volumes will more than double to 7 billion, growing on average by 3.8% per year as demand from Africa, India and other developing countries sky rockets. Aviation is currently responsible for 2% of global carbon emissions and most experts agree this will increase to 3% by 2050. Furthermore, it is agreed there is a ‘multiplier’ effect of between 2-4% for the increased impact of high altitude emissions that scientists do not yet fully understand.
As pressure from governments and environmental groups to cut emissions mounts, industry ecosystems are adapting. In aviation, significant steps in aircraft technology have been made, with the latest carbon composite aircraft from both Boeing and Airbus flying with 25% fuel efficiency gains and 60% noise reduction compared to traditional jets. Airlines are continually working to drive fuel consumption down with weight and route efficiency improvements and the industry have set impressive goals to cut emissions.
The threat of regulation
In 2008, the European Union announced the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), designed to limit CO2 emissions across many industries, including commercial aviation. The scheme applied to the full journey of any flight landing in European airspace and thus caused market distortion as some airlines would be hit harder than others. The implementation and bureaucracy was cumbersome and the revenue from the scheme was not specifically directed towards climate change initiatives. Essentially, it was viewed as a tax that didn’t serve the end goal. Cathay Pacific publicly opposed the scheme and worked closely with IATA and other airlines to eventually succeed in ‘stopping the clock’ on the implementation and eventually permanently excluding airlines from the regulation.
The root of the concern was that if the EU moved forward with a scheme that impacted airlines even for the part of the flight out of European airspace, other regions would do the same, resulting in a complex fragmented and patch work regulation on carbon emissions. The threat therefore galvanized the airlines into action and a framework has been put forward to ensure the industry stays ahead of punitive regulatory changes. This is of critical importance in a highly competitive industry with thin margins where costs can’t easily be passed on to the end customer.
Regulation implementation
The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has proposed the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSEA), a global market based carbon offsetting scheme committing airlines to carbon neutral growth from 2020. The majority of International Air Transport Association (IATA) members, accounting for 86.5% of aviation emissions between 2021-2035, have committed to the scheme which is set to commence in 2021.
The historical significance of CORSEAcannot be underestimated – the aviation industry is one of the only sectors that has succeeded in creating a global scheme with real cost implications and commitment for members. It is widely supported and regarded as an effective solution for airlines to manage their carbon footprint. Although not perfect, CORSEA has helped airlinesavoid piecemeal regulation.
Cathay Pacific chaired the IATA joint task force on climate change targets and was a founding member of the ‘Aviation Global Deal’ and thus played a significant role in the development of CORSEA. Cathay Pacific’s major shareholder, Swire Pacific, is controlled by a family holding company which places great emphasis on sustainability. As early as 2006, the group was conducting company-wide analysis on greenhouse gas emissions impact, weighing up revenues with reputation and cost. Cathay was the first airline to work with EU initiative IAGOS, installing monitoring equipment on a long-haul aircraft to facilitate high altitude climate change research. The airline also continually works to reduce fuel consumption through various initiatives from on-board weight reduction to new techniques such as engine core washing and the group offsets all staff travel. Yet technology and small process iterations alone won’t get the industry to where it needs to be by 2050.
Looking ahead
Industry wide regulation and support is vital if aviation is to take a bigger leap forwards in sustainability. There are two areas critical to increased sustainability: 1)Greater air traffic control and route optimization 2)Industry wide regulation and support for Biofuel. Airlines such as Cathay Pacific are keen to further clean up their image and are working to achieve these changes in the following ways.
- Cathay Pacific worked with the Asia and Pacific Initiative to Reduce Emissions (Aspire), running experiments to improve air traffic management. On average, 4.5-12 minutes per flight were saved, which multiplied out over Cathay’s flights to Australia alone saves 1000 tonnes of fuel and 3150 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year. Air space is controlled by governments and is often not centralized – in the Hong Kong air space for example, planes coming from the north have to approach from the south, adding significant journey time in order to avoid the Guangzhou air space. Such inefficiencies are common and governments should take responsibility to push through improvements and reduce the onus on airlines. Airlines should therefore lobby and work through IATA and ICAO to push for the necessary changes.
Cathay Pacific is a member the Sustainable Aviation Fuel User Group, the Roundtable for Sustainable Biomaterial and various other groups and forums all working towards similar goals. Virgin Atlantic was the first airline to fly with biofuel – yet to power the Virgin fleet for a year with the biofuel used would require 50% of UK arable land. Whether this was ‘greenwash’ or added value in drawing attention to the issue is debatable and since then, other airlines have conducted test flights. Cathay is one of the few airlines invested directly in a company that converts waste cooking oil to Biojet fuel and from 2019, the airline will use a 50:50 mix on transpacific flights. This is a fantastic step in the right direction, but again a global solution that monitors safety (jet fuel has high safety specifications), infrastructure (many airports do not have facilities to store biofuel) and sustainable standards is required to ensure the industry moves out of the experimental phase to commercial production at competitive prices.