A report by the University of Cambridge’s Aviation Impact Accelerator project sets out four actionable steps that are needed over the next five years to help the global aviation sector achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Despite ambitious pledges from governments and industry, the sector so far “remains dangerously off track” in its efforts, says the report, and insists the four goals must be implemented immediately, otherwise “the opportunity for transformation could be lost”. This would leave the world to face escalating climate impacts from a rapidly growing aviation sector that is projected to at least double its emissions by 2050. The four goals include removing aircraft contrails, implementing a new wave of policies aimed at unlocking efficiency gains, reforming sustainable aviation fuel policies and, finally, launching several moonshot technology demonstration programmes such as on long-haul hydrogen aircraft.

The report, ‘Five years to chart a new future for aviation’, is the work of the Aviation Impact Accelerator, a project led by the University of Cambridge and hosted by the university’s Whittle Laboratory and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL).

While endorsing a net zero vision for the industry, “current efforts fall short in both scope and speed,” it says, arguing that some proposed solutions could potentially exacerbate the crisis, such as a heavy reliance on biomass for jet fuel without managing its environmental impact. “It is also crucial to address aviation’s broader climate impacts, including the formation of persistent contrails. The stakes have never been higher: urgent action is needed to shift the sector onto a sustainable path.”

Commented Professor Rob Miller, Director of the Whittle Laboratory: “Aviation stands at a pivotal moment, much like the automotive industry in the late 2000s. Back then, discussions centred around biofuels as the replacement for petrol and diesel – until Tesla revolutionised the future with electric vehicles. Our five-year plan is designed to accelerate this decision point in aviation, setting it on a path to achieve net zero by 2050.”

The plan involves immediately implementing four sustainable aviation goals that were originated during an inaugural meeting of the Transatlantic Sustainable Aviation Partnership held at MIT in the US in April 2023, with representatives from the UK, US and EU. They were further discussed at a roundtable hosted by the Sustainable Markets Initiative in the presence of King Charles III, and previewed at the opening of COP28.

• Goal 1: Dubbed Operation Blue Skies, it calls on governments and industry to create several ‘Airspace-Scale Living Labs’ to enable a global contrail avoidance system to be deployed by 2030.
• Goal 2: In 2025, leading governments should clearly commit about their intention to drive system-wide efficiency improvements and should work together with industry to develop strategies, so that by 2030, a new wave of policies can be implemented to unlock these systemic efficiency gains.
• Goal 3: In 2025, governments should reform sustainable aviation fuel policy development to adopt a cross-sector approach, enabling rapid scalability within global biomass limitations. By 2030, governments and industry should implement a demonstration and deployment strategy that enables SAF production to move beyond purely biomass-based methods, incorporating more carbon-efficient synthetic production techniques.
• Goal 4: In 2025, launch several high-reward experimental demonstration moonshot programmes to enable the focus on, and scale-up of, the most viable transformative technologies by 2030.

The report says goals 2 and 3 can be achieved with minimal new technology but require “robust and clear” market signals and swift policy action, whereas goals 1 and 4 “demand immediate efforts to push the boundaries of technology, creating new opportunities from 2030”.

Growing awareness and commitment to action are encouraging, believe the authors of the report. “Still, it is essential to match those professed concerns with decisive interventions over the next five years to create a credible path to net zero aviation by 2050,” they add.

The Aviation Impact Accelerator is a global initiative that brings together more than 100 experts from across the aviation industry to accelerate the sector’s transition to net zero emissions. Its goal is to develop interactive tools and models that assist stakeholders – governments, industry and the public – in understanding and exploring pathways to sustainable aviation.

“AIA modelling has drawn on the best available evidence to show that there are major challenges to be navigated if we’re to achieve net zero flying at scale, but that is possible,” said Eliot Whittington, Executive Director at CISL. “With focus and a step change in ambition from governments and business, we can address the hurdles, unlock sustainable flying and in doing so, build new industries and support wider economic change.”

Photo (University of Cambridge): Prof Rob Miller and King Charles III at the Whittle Laboratory facility

Christopher Surgenor

Editor

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IATA has announced a package of partnerships to help drive further cuts in aviation’s emissions in the air and on the ground. Together with the Aviation Impact Accelerator (AIA), an international collaboration of industry and academia, IATA will develop scenario-based tools that enable airlines to evaluate the costs of various carbon reduction pathways before choosing the measures most appropriate to their own circumstances. A second partnership, with the global engineering and project management company Atkins, will assist airports to measure the volume of carbon embedded in assets such as terminal buildings, runways and car parks, and provide tools to help cut the carbon footprint of future infrastructure projects. Additionally, the airlines body has announced it will publish an annual Track Zero report to transparently catalogue the industry’s progress towards its 2050 emission reduction targets.

The Aviation Impact Accelerator is a collective of international experts leveraging expertise sourced by the UK’s University of Cambridge to explore the cost to the aviation sector of achieving its commitment to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. In partnership with IATA, the group is developing evidence-based tools that enable carriers to understand, map and select specific measures to guide their emissions reduction strategies.

“We are excited to launch this new collaboration between AIA and IATA, investigating realistic pathways for aviation’s transition to net zero emissions by 2050,” said AIA’s Lead, Professor Rob Miller, who is also Director of the Whittle Laboratory at University of Cambridge. Marie Owens Thomsen, IATA’s SVP Sustainability and Chief Economist, explained the partnership would enhance the airline industry’s understanding of the options available to cut flight emissions. “The development of different technological pathways will have an influence on the long-term outlook of our industry,” she said, “and our collaboration will notably explore this intersection.”

The AIA partnership will also consider cooperation to develop IATA’s Recommended Practice Per Passenger CO2 calculation methodology, which, when used together with verified operational data from airlines, provides detailed information about the carbon footprint of flying.

On the ground, the new collaboration of IATA and Atkins has produced a package of digital tools that will help airports estimate the embodied carbon linked to the construction of infrastructure, including terminals and runways. This initiative will provide carbon benchmarking for the three main asset categories at airports – terminal buildings, runways and multi-storey car parks – to enable airport growth teams to understand the carbon created by their development programmes and ways of mitigating future risk, beginning as early as the project design phase.

“Reaching net zero by 2050 will require collective efforts from the entire industry supply chain and from policymakers,” said Nick Careen, IATA’s SVP Operations, Safety and Security. “Our collaboration with Atkins on this innovative digital toolkit will help airports meet their own objectives by providing a crucial platform to evaluate and reduce carbon impacts for new airport developments. By facilitating dialogue around carbon mitigation from day one of an airport development project, together we are making headway towards net zero aviation.”

Andy Yates, Atkins’ Technical Director, Aviation Infrastructure, believes the partnership with IATA will lead the aviation sector into “a challenging and previously unexplored area of embodied carbon assessment,” he said. “The tools have been developed by a multi-disciplinary team including architecture, airport planning and structural design, as well as carbon experts, ensuring a solution that understands the complexity and multi-faceted approach needed to assess embodied carbon.”

Announced during its AGM in Istanbul last month, a third IATA partnership will see ATPCO, a provider of content to showcase airlines’ fares, in-flight amenities and merchandising, expand its offering to help prospective travellers understand the carbon cost of various itinerary options at the time they are researching air fares. ATPCO’s Routehappy programme will use IATA’s CO2 Connect databank, which provides airline-specific fuel burn information from 74 aircraft types and 881 aircraft operators, which collectively provide 93% of global air travel.

“We know travellers want to understand their flight’s environmental impact in a consistent, transparent and trustworthy way,” said IATA Director General Willie Walsh. “IATA CO2 Connect is the most accurate tool providing this information.”

Alex Zoghlin, ATPCO’s President and CEO, said the introduction of airline-specific emissions information added a new dimension to the merchandising data and content provided by his company, enabling passengers, corporate travel management companies and travel agents to access CO2 emissions information at the point of booking in order to compare flights and “make a more sustainable choice”.  

The new partnerships coincide with IATA’s decision to publish an annual Track Zero report from next year, to document the progress of the airline industry towards its 2050 emission reduction targets. “Transparency is a critical element of aviation’s decarbonisation,” explained IATA’s Owens Thomsen. “Industry-level data in the Track Zero report will help airlines, governments and investors with tools to improve decision making to accelerate progress.”

In his first public engagement since his coronation, King Charles III has broken ground on the New Whittle Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, a £58 million ($73m) facility aiming to become a leading global centre for net zero aviation and energy. Its mission is to halve the time to develop key technologies to support a sustainable aviation industry. The King met the Laboratory’s staff and researchers, as well as aviation industry and senior government representatives, who gathered for an international roundtable as part of an initiative led by Cambridge and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Participating organisations included the UK government, UK Aerospace Technology Institute, the US FAA, NASA, EU Clean Aviation Joint Understanding, Airbus, Boeing, Rolls-Royce and the Sustainable Markets Initiative. The facility will incorporate the Bennett Innovation Laboratory and the UK’s National Centre for Propulsion and Power, built around a fast feedback model pioneered in motor racing’s Formula One.

“We need to completely transform the innovation landscape in the aviation and energy sectors if we are to reach net zero by 2050,” commented Professor Rob Miller, Director of the Whittle Laboratory, which was opened in 1973 by Sir Frank Whittle, a pioneer in the development of modern power and propulsion systems for aircraft. “The New Whittle Laboratory has been designed as a disruptive innovation lab targeting the critical early stages in the lifecycles of technologies, where there are windows of opportunity to translate scientific strengths into global technological and industrial leadership.”

The roundtable shared insights based on global aviation systems modelling capabilities developed through the Aviation Impact Accelerator, a project led by the Whittle Laboratory and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

Today, reported Miller, it typically takes six to eight years to develop a new technology to a point where it can be considered for commercial deployment in the aerospace and energy sectors, but he said recent trials in the Laboratory had shown this timeframe can be accelerated by breaking down barriers that exist between academia and industry.

“The Lab is designed to work at the intersection of cutting-edge science and emerging  engineering applications, providing fast feedback between the two, and dramatically cutting the time to deliver zero-emission technologies,” added Miller.

The Bennett Innovation Laboratory is made possible through a gift from the Peter Bennett Foundation, himself a Cambridge alumnus and philanthropist. “To tackle the most complex challenges, we need to take a whole systems approach, where innovative technologies can be explored within the context of the realities that may impact their roll out. Rigorous testing using models such as the Aviation Impact Accelerator expedites the process of innovation and implementation.

“We need new ways to work together at speed, which is why the Bennett Innovation Lab will bring together global experts from government, industry and academia, enabling radical collaboration. I believe by using Cambridge’s convening power, this can make a real difference fast.”

Attending the event was the UK’s Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, who said: “The UK is leading a revolution in aviation, looking to new technologies to cut emissions. Having established the Jet Zero Council three years ago by bringing together government, industry and academia, I strongly welcome the Whittle Laboratory being at the forefront of that endeavour today. This will further help the best minds from the fields of energy and aviation push ever-further and faster with the latest innovations in order to solve the problem of environmentally friendly and affordable flying.”

Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has had a strategic research partnership with the Laboratory since the 1980s. “We look forward to continuing our relationship over the coming decades and we want our engineers to think of the new Lab as their European home – a unique environment where they can participate in a culture that brings together the best global ideas, expertise, software, tools and testing facilities that can help solve the challenge of climate change.”

The Laboratory also has a long association with aero engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce that has delivered hundreds of technologies into its products, said Rolls-Royce Chief Technology Officer, Grazia Vittadini. “Partnerships like this are critical if the UK is to maintain its role as a science superpower and to create high value jobs in the UK,” she said. “The New Whittle Laboratory offers an exciting opportunity to raise this ambition by bringing together cutting-edge science and engineering application in one building with the aim of meeting the challenge of net zero flight by 2050.”

Also represented at the event was US aeroplane manufacturer Boeing. “Our partnership with the University of Cambridge is central to the effort of making aviation carbon neutral,” said Jim Hileman, VP and Chief Engineer, Sustainability and Future Mobility. “As well as helping us to find technology solutions, it is bringing together different companies and academic disciplines from across the sector to drive change at the system level. We are excited by the way in which the New Whittle Laboratory has been designed to break down silos, bringing together a wide range of disciplines to take on the most challenging net zero aviation problems.”

When Prince of Wales, King Charles visited the Laboratory in 2020 and 2022 to encourage the acceleration of sustainable aviation. He hosted an industry roundtable in 2020 in London with the Sustainable Markets Initiative and the World Economic Forum to explore solutions for decarbonising air travel.

Photo (© University of Cambridge, Lloyd Mann): King Charles at the ground-breaking ceremony for the New Whittle Laboratory

Christopher Surgenor

Editor

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Private and business aviation sustainability specialist 4AIR is to partner with the Aviation Impact Accelerator (AIA), a project led by the University of Cambridge to develop interactive, evidence-based tools to engage decision-makers, the aviation industry and the public about how to achieve ‘net zero flight’. Boston-based 4AIR will raise finance for the project through its Aviation Climate Fund, which uses contributions from its clients based on their carbon footprint to support research and development for future aviation technologies and emission reduction solutions. The company uses a four-step ratings programme with science-based goals for clients to work towards carbon neutrality, emissions neutrality and emissions reduction. The AIA project is an international group of academics and practitioners drawing on a broad range of expertise to build an interactive, open-source, whole system simulator that can map pathways and accelerate the journey to climate neutral aviation.

The four tiers of the 4AIR ratings programme start at Level 1 (Bronze), which requires a 100% offsetting of an individual’s or operator’s carbon emissions, progressing to Level 2 (Silver) in which non-CO2 pollutants must also be offset, and then to Level 3 (Gold), whereby clients go beyond carbon offsets and requires a 5% direct emission reduction through, for example, the use of sustainable aviation fuels.

All carbon credits purchased are quantified and verified through respected bodies such as American Carbon Registry, Climate Action Reserve, Verified Carbon Standard (Verra) and Gold Standard.

The highest Level 4, where the client is described as a ‘climate champion’, requires a direct contribution to the Aviation Climate Fund. The fund is intended to go in the form of grants and investments towards supporting university research in new technologies aimed at reducing aviation emissions. 4AIR says that during 2021, the fund supported research carried out by the Aviation Sustainability Center (ASCENT), the US aviation research organisation.

4AIR has recently launched an interactive SAF map for business jets to help operators with locations that could supply SAF. The company argues, however, that while carbon offsetting and SAF can help make much-needed progress, they are not by themselves enough to achieve a true zero impact.

“In order to meet ambitious sustainability goals such as ‘net zero flight’, we will need future technologies that enable actual emissions reductions within the industry beyond offsets and SAF,” said Kennedy Ricci, 4AIR President. “We launched the Fund to achieve this by supporting research and development for future aviation emission reduction solutions. Our partnership with the AIA will support bringing the leading academics and industry practitioners together to identify new paths to ‘net zero flight’.”

The Aviation Impact Accelerator project is led by the University of Cambridge’s Whittle Laboratory and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), and brings together a multidisciplinary team of experts from the University’s Department of Chemical Engineering, Hopkinson Laboratory, BP Institute, Judge Business School and Bennett Institute, together with the Air Transportation Systems Lab at University College London and the Melbourne Energy Institute at the University of Melbourne. The project is also partnered with the Prince of Wales’ Sustainable Markets Initiative, the World Economic Forum, Cambridge Zero, MathWorks and SATAVIA, with the input of industry advisors Rolls-Royce, Boeing, bp, Heathrow and Siemens Energy.

“Aviation is one of the most carbon-intensive forms of transportation and enabling the shift to ‘net zero flight’ will require a complete technological shift,” said Professor Rob Miller, Director of the Whittle Laboratory, who is co-leading the AIA project, who says climate change means a wait of 30 years to make zero-carbon flight a reality is too long. “I believe that this timescale can be cut in half and that we can have net zero carbon flight by 2035. But this can only become a reality if we radically change the way we develop and scale technologies,” he told the University’s alumni magazine CAM.

“We welcome 4AIR’s support in identifying solutions and developing ways to bring the full range of stakeholders into the debate about how best to achieve this ambitious, but absolutely critical, goal.”

At the COP26 side event below (scroll down), Professor Rob Miller and CISL’s Director of Policy, Eliot Whittington, explored the opportunities and challenges for climate neutral aviation. They provided a preview of the Aviation Impact Accelerator to demonstrate its potential to guide innovation, investment and policy action.