Airlines have taken a battering from environmental lobbyists for their impact on climate change, so how are carriers building the environment into their strategies?
Green is becoming the new black in the airline industry. While environmental pressure on airlines may not have reached European proportions in other parts of the world just yet, it could soon. In preparation for this, a growing number of carriers have moved the green issue up their agendas, and are working to build environmental initiatives into their core strategies.
"We expect IATA airlines to be active in this area. They have been active in the past on noise and local issues - we now expect them to address climate change," says Philippe Rochat, outgoing director of IATA's aviation environment department.
The most obvious environmental impact of aviation is the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. To address this, several carriers are focusing on operational measures aimed at reducing fuel burn, fully cognisant of the fact that with oil prices worryingly close to $100 a barrel, it also makes economic sense to burn as little fuel as possible.
"The big improvements are likely to come through technology, but operational improvements are there to be taken," says Hugh Somerville, co-ordinator of UK-based Sustainable Aviation and former head of British Airways' sustainable business unit. Somerville's former employer has launched a number of initiatives of its own which, combined with the carrier's fleet renewal programme, have enabled it to improve fuel efficiency by almost 30% compared to 1990 levels.
"During the 1990s at British Airways, we became the first airline to recognise the importance of environmental performance by publishing fuel efficiency targets," BA chief executive Willie Walsh told delegates at an environmental conference in Dublin in early December. "We set a target to achieve a 30% improvement in fuel efficiency by 2010, compared with 1990. By the end of last year, we had achieved a 28% improvement, preventing the release into the atmosphere of an additional 60 million tonnes of CO2."
BA has now set a fresh target to improve fuel efficiency by a further 25% by 2025, compared with 2005. The initiatives the airline has adopted to help meet its new target include single-engine taxiing, continuous descent approaches and "push and hold", a technique it is using at London Gatwick. "When a flight has a slot delay, rather than pushing back from the gate and waiting with engines running, a new procedure has been developed at Gatwick to push aircraft to a remote holding position and start engines only when it is time to go," says Walsh. The carrier is also looking at route shortening as another way of cutting emissions: "Over the last two years we have saved over 50,000 tonnes of CO2 [by] flying shorter routes over Kazakhstan, China and Brazil."
Some of these measures are nothing new and have long been employed by US carriers, according to Nancy Young, vice-president of environmental affairs at the Air Transport Association. "Single-engine taxiing is a method many of our carriers have long used. Our requirements on NOX [nitrous oxide] have been more stringent than in Europe," says Young. "Reduced thrust take-offs and continuous descent are pretty popular techniques."
Continuous descent approach techniques are also used in the Asia-Pacific region by Cathay Pacific Airways, wherever possible. "CDA is something we do whenever we can, and in Hong Kong we're able to do it quite a lot," says Cathay Pacific environmental manager Linden Coppell. Cathay sees itself as playing "a leading role in Asia" on the environment and has had its own environment office for 10 years, she adds.
It is becoming de rigueur for airlines to appoint environmental managers and to form environmental units dedicated to working on these issues. For instance, about 15 people work in Air France's environment and sustainability unit, according to the carrier's senior vice-president of quality, environment and sustainable development, Pierre Caussade. Air France has a website dedicated to sustainable development, which Caussade says is designed to "make our commitment clear and to be transparent on these issues".
The environmental unit at Continental Airlines employs about 13 staff members. "The unit covers the entire system, including compliance with regulations, co-ordinating recycling efforts and general energy efficiency efforts," says Continental's environmental affairs director Leah Raney. One of the projects the unit has been working on is the use of alternative fuels in some of Continental's ground services equipment. "In Houston we have reduced our NOX emissions on the ground by 75% by using electric equipment. We've spent many millions of dollars on changing ground vehicles to electric," she explains, adding that summer and winter testing of alternative fuels is ongoing at the carrier's Cleveland and Newark hubs to see how well they work in colder weather conditions.
It is not only the impact of emissions that airlines are beginning to look at as part of the drive to improve environmental performance. In-flight waste is an issue that Cathay Pacific has started to hone in on. "We've taken a leadership role on the issue of waste management in flight," says Coppell. "In 2006, we recycled eight tonnes of aluminium cans and nine tonnes of plastic bottles." In 2007, the airline also began recycling in-flight plastic cups. However, there are restrictions that prevent airlines from recycling waste, and Cathay Pacific is only able to recycle waste from flights going into its home airport.
"We can only recycle on in-bound flights because recycling facilities are available at Hong Kong airport. There are differences at every airport - some airports incinerate all waste for hygiene reasons," explains Coppell. "We would like to see more airlines using the recycling opportunity at Hong Kong." She adds that "there will be a change", and more airports will eventually offer recycling services, but this change will "have to be driven by the home airlines". Coppell also points out that the vast amounts of waste created per flight are unlikely to be reduced because "there is an expectation among passengers to have everything separately packaged".
Another green trend hitting the airlines is carbon offsetting. More and more carriers are adding a mechanism to their websites which enables passengers to calculate the emissions for the flights they are booking, and pay an offsetting fee to fund environmental initiatives elsewhere, such as the construction of wind farms or tree planting. "The great thing about carbon offsetting, and it has taken airlines a while to realise, is that you can do it now and it doesn't require government intervention," says Somerville. "It is easier for the public to grasp than emissions trading and there is lots of potential in it, particularly if you can get projects that resonate with people."
Continental, in conjunction with non-profit organisation Sustainable Travel International, recently launched a carbon offsetting scheme of its own, which Raney says is a response to customer demand. "We got feedback, particularly in Europe, that there was lots of demand for carbon offsetting, and in the US as well customers are glad we're doing this," she says, adding that the carrier "did lots of research because we wanted to make sure our partner was very credible".
One of the criticisms lobbied at carbon offsetting is that it is difficult to ensure that the money raised goes where it is supposed to go. However, there is evidence that airlines themselves are beginning to take more control of these programmes. For instance, Cathay Pacific, which is on the verge of launching a carbon offsetting scheme, is keen to "take a more hands-on approach than other airlines", according to Coppell. "We will source the projects ourselves because we want to make sure the funds go to projects in Asia and within the Guangdong region," she says. "We're being quite specific about our requirements." Similarly, Continental's Raney says: "We personally hired Conservation Capital in Houston to check and make sure the money went where it was supposed to go." The level of uptake among passengers for such schemes is unclear, but it appears to be somewhat minimal at this stage. "I would guess the uptake is still relatively low, but that has been the experience of everyone," says Mike Rutter, chief commercial officer at UK regional operator Flybe, which has an offsetting scheme run by a provider called PURE.
Another issue with offsetting is the way in which emissions are calculated. At Cathay Pacific, the carrier's own data from historic load factors is being used in the calculation process, and factors such as the length of each flight are taken into account. "We're making sure we come up with an effective mechanism that takes out cargo," explains Coppell.
As a way around possible distortions in the way emissions are calculated, the Air Transport Association is working with ICAO to develop and make available to airlines a carbon calculator that gives information on emissions based not only on the aircraft, but on the type of flight it is operating. "We are very excited about the carbon calculator because it will provide a basis for doing an apples for apples comparison around the world," says Young. She adds that the mechanism should be available to airlines by May or June.
One airline that has pioneered pushing the calculation of carbon emissions into the public domain is Flybe with its "ecolabel" scheme, which it launched in mid-2007. The initiative gives ratings to each aircraft type operating in the UK, based on noise and CO2 and NOX emissions on landing and take-off, as well as fuel consumption and CO2 emissions on a kilogramme per seat basis. This information is made clearly available to passengers. "We've sought to absolutely weave ecolabelling into the fabric of the passenger experience," says Rutter. "As well as appearing on our website when passengers make a booking, ecolabels appear on the side of the plane as they board - we see this as being as important as providing passengers with information on seating." Rutter adds that Flybe had been considering the ecolabel initiative for a couple of years prior to its launch. "The reason we chose the time we did was that we were far enough down our fleet replacement, and there was heightened political interest in the [environment] issue, particularly for predominantly domestic carriers such as Flybe."
Flybe has offered to make the scheme available for use by other carriers, but has met with a muted response. "We said at the time of launching the scheme that we would be more than happy to work with other carriers, and I have to say we have been completely under-whelmed by the response from the rest of the industry," says Rutter. "We remain the world's first and only airline [to offer ecolabelling]." Somerville describes the carrier's labelling scheme as "the sort of initiative that has to be encouraged", but points out that "others are unlikely to pick it up at the moment because it's very marketing-based".
Flybe has invested about £200,000 ($406,668), in project terms, in its ecolabelling and carbon offsetting schemes, and has invested a further $2 billion in its fleet renewal programme. The carrier is keen to publicise its environmental credentials and to urge other carriers to take similar action. "We were made to stand in the corner and wear a dunce's hat when we chose turboprops, but they burn less fuel and we knew that at some stage the industry would have to face up to the environmental issue," says Rutter, adding that Flybe is calling for older aircraft to be banned by 2012. "We advocate that, except for in socially challenged areas, every aircraft that is over 15 years old should be banned immediately, and all aircraft over 10 years old should be phased out by 2012. This would result in a 30% reduction in emissions."
This call is unlikely to be well-received in the USA, where financial difficulties have stalled carriers' fleet renewal programmes. "Percentage-wise there are more of the older aircraft in the US fleet," admits the Air Transport Association's Young. "But US carriers are in a horrible financial situation, so the real challenge we have is to continue to improve airlines' financial outlook so they can invest in new aircraft."
Another tactic gaining traction among airlines as a means of demonstrating that they take the climate change issue seriously is the publication of sustainability reports. "Our policy is that we are part of the problem and would like to be part of the solution," says Caussade of Air France, which issued its third annual sustainability report in July. Lufthansa says it has been producing environmental reports "for the last five to seven years". It adds: "Every two years we try to bring together the latest environmental information in co-operation with German research companies."
Cathay Pacific has been publishing sustainability reports in one form or another since the 1990s, but "we have been doing more transparent reporting since 2003", says Coppell. And environmental reporting is also endorsed by IATA, as Rochat explains: "We are encouraging airlines to report on their environmental efforts and achievements. The approach of publishing sustainability reports is probably the right one - there is logic behind this. But it is relatively new and I'm not sure all airlines will follow the same trend."
This kind of reporting is beginning to catch on in the USA, where Continental has started to look into the possibility of issuing a report of its own. "We've started putting information on our website and in a brochure and we are taking steps to put together a sustainability report," says Raney. "We are gathering the information right now and it should be ready by mid-2008, I'm guessing."
Airlines are also beginning to fight back at critics by lending their support to groups that focus on green initiatives. For example, Lufthansa claims it has "always invested in environmental projects", and plans to do more of this in the future. "We co-operate with non-governmental organisations in Germany and in Europe, and we are currently reviewing increasing this and looking into other projects," says the carrier. This is also something that is under review at Air France: "We have the intention to support large environmental programmes developed by non-governmental organisations. This is a project in process and we expect to make an announcement on this in March," says Caussade.
Airlines in Europe have been losing the public relations battle when it comes to their impact on climate change. But Air France, for one, aims to claw back some ground on this front: "Clearly it will become more and more important to communicate on the environmental issue," says Caussade. "We will start by communicating to customers through in-flight movies and magazines, and after that it will develop into a media campaign."
While all of these measures taken by individual airlines are generally acknowledged to be better than doing nothing, there are calls for the industry as a whole to work together on addressing its impact on climate change. "I would rather see collective action," says Somerville. "It would serve the industry much better, but that doesn't mean to say I don't welcome individual changes."
Different agendas
While the environmental debate over the impact of aviation on climate change is raging in Europe, it still languishes towards the bottom of the list of priorities for airlines in other parts of the world. However, many believe it is only a matter of time before it is forced on the agenda.
Philippe Rochat, outgoing director of IATA's aviation environment department, says European carriers are leading the way on the environment front, but points out that carriers in parts of Asia are not far behind. "A growing number of airlines are now very active in environmental terms, although it depends on the region in which they are located," he says. "European carriers are probably the most advanced, followed by Asia-Pacific carriers in countries such as Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Korea."
Outside Europe, however, the airline industry is not publicly perceived as being the worst culprit when it comes to climate change. "In Asia, the understanding by the public on climate change is getting stronger, but the link with aviation is not as strong as it is in Europe," says Cathay Pacific Airways environmental manager Linden Coppell.
In the USA, the Air Transport Association is keen to avoid seeing a repetition of the kind of debate that has surrounded aviation and the environment in Europe. "The sentiment in Europe is well beyond the reality," says ATA vice-president of environmental affairs Nancy Young. "In the US, there is obviously increasing concern about airlines' contribution to climate change, but our hope is that we can keep the dialogue in proportion so it doesn't get to the level it's at in Europe."
Moving south of the USA, carriers in Mexico recognise that the environment will be an important issue for them in the future, but they do not see it as a priority at the moment. "The environment is not a big issue here, but it will be in the near future," says Aeromexico chief executive Andrés Conesa. "Going forward, only airlines that have modern aircraft will be able to fly sustainably."
Mexicana chief executive Gastón Azcárraga agrees: "The environment is clearly an important issue for the airlines and it's in the minds of most airline companies. It is not top of our agenda but we know for sure that this is a world trend and it will come to Mexico."
Source: Airline Business
