The United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund, which was launched five months ago with more than $100 million in investments from United and five partners, has increased in size to $200 million with the addition of eight new partners: American Express Global Business Travel, Aramco Ventures, Aviation Capital Group, Bank of America, Boston Consulting Group, Groupe ADP, Hawaiian Airlines and JetBlue Ventures. The fund is a way for companies and consumers to come together and increase the supply of sustainable aviation fuel through the support of startups. The new corporate members join inaugural partners Air Canada, Boeing, GE Aerospace, JPMorgan Chase and Honeywell. United’s customers also have the option to contribute to supplement the airline’s investment in the fund when they book flights and since the fund launched, more than 60,000 customers have contributed over $200,000. To date, United has invested in the future production of over five billion gallons of SAF – the most of any airline in the world, it says, with existing investments moved into the new fund.

“While United can’t decarbonise the airline industry alone, we can use our leadership and credibility in this space to rally other to join us,” said Michael Leskinen, President of United Airlines Ventures, with the airline saying it will continue to recruit corporations across industries to join the fund and will prioritise investment in new technology, advanced fuel sources and proven producers in order to help scale the supply of SAF. Partners also have the potential to gain preferential access to environmental attributes associated with United’s future supply of SAF.

“As companies across the globe are increasingly looking for ways to reduce their environmental impact from flying, the UAV Sustainable Flight Fund presents a unique opportunity,” Leskinen added. “Instead of fighting over the current limited supply of SAF, with our partners, we’re working collaboratively to help scale the SAF industry itself, and to get an equity stake in groundbreaking technology while doing it.”

Through the fund, United intends to invest in a variety of SAF feedstocks and technologies. In the past two years, UAV has made investments in or signed purchase agreements with companies using a variety of ingredients and technologies to produce SAF, including feedstocks like ethanol, animal byproducts, forestry and crop waste, and municipal waste. This is in addition to early-stage, promising technologies such as synthetic biology and power-to-liquids, incorporating renewable power, hydrogen and carbon capture processes.

SAF companies to date receiving investment from UAV include Alder Fuels, Cemvita, Dimensional Energy, Fulcrum BioEnergy, Next Renewable Fuels, Svante and Viridos.

Following an investment in sodium-ion battery-maker Natron Energy, UAV this month announced another electric battery investment, this time with Electric Power Systems, a company producing battery technology that can potentially be used for a broad suite of aerospace applications. Rather than producing battery cells, the company says its compatible module technology can be adapted to support a variety of batteries, that could allow United to consider its modules for a number of near-term applications. EPS aims to provide a whole battery ‘ecosystem’ for aviation, from the packs on aircraft to charging stations on the ground.

United is exploring options to move its pilot training academy, Aviate, away from internal combustion-powered training aircraft to electric ones. EPS says its powertrain could serve as the core propulsion system for a family of future electric aircraft concepts, starting with an electric trainer and scaling to larger variants as technology advances. Additionally, United has more than 12,000 pieces of motorised ground equipment across its operations, of which about one third are currently electric, and EPS’s battery modules could potentially be deployed in support of several uses.

Photo: United Airlines

Christopher Surgenor

Editor

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Bank of America has become the first financial institution to join the sustainable aviation fuel purchasing programme jointly established by Shell Aviation and American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT). The book-and-claim programme enables corporations to verifiably purchase SAF to compensate for the emissions created when their employees fly on company business. The bank has pledged to support the production and use of 1 billion gallons of SAF by 2030 and has committed to ensure SAF comprises at least 20% of the total jet fuel used each year in flights by its own staff and management. The new partnership coincides with an announcement by Shell that it will supply SAF to Japan Airlines in Los Angeles from 2025.

“By purchasing SAF, and working with other companies, we are taking more tangible steps to help build a more affordable and accessible sustainable aviation fuel market,” said Beth Sullivan, Bank of America’s Head of Global Corporate and Executive Travel.

The Amex GBT-Shell programme adopted by Bank of America is designed to connect airlines with corporations willing to help pay the premium charged for SAF, which is currently two-to-eight times the price of conventional fossil-based jet fuels. The programme uses the blockchain-powered Avelia book-and-claim platform, which leverages the Amex GBT base of over 19,000 clients in 140 countries, and accounts for SAF provided by Shell.

“The business travel sector has a critical role to play in scaling SAF and accelerating the decarbonisation of travel,” said the Amex GBT’s President, Andrew Crawley. “We will move closer to achieving these objectives with more companies like Bank of America making bold commitments and recognising the powerful role the corporate travel programme can play in achieving a company’s broader sustainability goals.”  

Participation by Bank of America in the programme follows multiple previous commitments by the bank to help catalyse the broader SAF market through financing, investment, capital markets and procurement. Its stated aim is to work with aviation fuel suppliers and other members of aviation’s energy ecosystem to help boost production of SAF, and support the development of distribution infrastructure through sustainable financing.

Among its commitments are a partnership with American Airlines to support the purchase of 3 million gallons of SAF over a three-year period, and a 10-year deal with SAF provider SkyNRG to support the production of 1.2 million gallons of SAF per year from 2025.  

The bank is also a founding member of the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA), a partner in two sustainability programmes of the World Economic Forum, ‘Clean Skies for Tomorrow’, and the ‘First Movers Coalition’, and a member of Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, a specialist investment vehicle established by tech billionaire Bill Gates to fund or invest in emergent technologies, including SAF, which help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The WEF was the catalyst for widespread commitments last year to accelerate SAF use to 10% by 2030. “Companies are moving from pledges to actual business practices,” said Lauren Uppink, the WEF’s Head of Climate Strategy. “This programme and Avelia represents the culmination of years of groundwork building the value chain to support the scaling of SAF, now operational. The theoretical is becoming real.”

Shell Aviation’s President, Jan Toschka, added: “It’s brilliant to see Bank of America leading the finance sector’s charge to decarbonise business travel through SAF. Corporations that choose to fly on SAF have the power to catalyse the scaling of this technology and accelerate decarbonisation across the aviation sector. It’s a fantastic opportunity for businesses to make aviation more sustainable.”

As well as supplying SAF for corporate purchasers, Shell is also upping its supplies to airlines, announcing an agreement to fuel Japan Airlines services in Los Angeles from 2025. Shell says it will provide JAL with SAF volumes of SAF “equivalent to its current estimated jet fuel uplifts in Los Angeles over the supply period.”

While the length of the period was not specified, JAL has committed that 1% of its total jet fuel from 2025 will be SAF, increasing to 10% of total use by 2030 as it strives to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Recently, JAL also set itself the 2030 target of reducing CO2 emissions by 10% compared to 2019 levels.

JAL’s Los Angeles commitment parallels moves by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) to mandate 10% SAF use on international flights from Japan, effective from 2030. The proposal also will require fuel suppliers to provide product including a 10% SAF blend. Subject to review by a council of private and public sector members, the SAF blending mandate is expected to be formalised by March next year. 

Photo: Shell Aviation

Leading B2B travel platform American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) has reached an agreement with CHOOOSE to integrate the climate tech company’s carbon emissions calculations across Amex GBT’s travel booking and reporting tools. With the integration, business travellers will see consistent trip emissions values in their search results, itineraries and in the Amex GBT Mobile app for past and future trips. Currently, Amex GBT displays carbon emission data in its online booking tool Neo to help travellers make “educated, sustainable” decisions and the new move will replace current calculation mechanisms with seamlessly integrated emissions calculations from CHOOOSE. Travel managers will be able to apply CHOOOSE-powered calculations to trips booked since 2019 for tracking, analysing and managing carbon footprints. Amex GBT said the integration is an important step in building the architecture for additional carbon compensation solutions across its products and services portfolio.

“Flights are the single largest contributor to business travel emissions, so our first priority is to help our clients keep up with evolving standards for calculating aviation emissions,” commented Mark McSpadden, Amex GBT’s VP of product strategy and user experience. “We are integrating solutions that give clients more choice, enhance our tools with more granular CO2 calculations and allow us to serve up robust, consistent data across our suite of booking, tracking and reporting tools. This helps educate travellers and drive real progress in sustainable travel.”

The new solution will let travel managers select a preferred calculation methodology and seamlessly apply that preference across online booking, mobile app and itinerary solutions. This, said Amex GBT, will provide more visibility into the traveller’s individual carbon footprint, “helping them better understand the environmental impact of travel and influence their booking behaviour.”

The integration will also allow Amex GBT to access industry-accepted air travel emissions methodologies, for example those of ICAO, UK BEIS, US EPA and France ADEME. Amex GBT also integrates with additional data sources such as IATA CO2 Connect, an emissions calculator developed with real airline data and based on IATA’s Recommended Practice RP 1726.

The company said this will give clients the flexibility to include more criteria such as distance, fuel burn, occupancy, cabin class and belly cargo to provide a higher degree of accuracy. Where applicable by methodology, customers can also select their preferences on radiative forcing (to account for non-CO2 climate impacts) and well-to-wake emissions, which is critical  for measuring the benefits of sustainable aviation fuel. Emissions data for additional travel segments such as rail, car and hotel will follow, said Amex GBT, with additional methodologies and features available over time.

Added the company: “Clients will have options to compensate for their business travel emissions via a diverse portfolio of climate solutions, integrated seamlessly into their booking and reporting tools. For example, these will include carbon offsets and insets, carbon removals and emerging decarbonisation solutions.”

CHOOOSE data will also support sustainable meeting and events solutions, “providing a consistent client experience with reliable data across Amex GBT’s services.” Amex GBT’s global B2B travel tech platform Egencia will integrate certain CHOOOSE-powered emissions calculations, including its reporting tool.

“We are very happy to support Amex GBT, and the millions of travellers they serve, in creating an industry-leading set of tools to track, understand and address the carbon footprint associated with business travel,” said Andreas Sletvoll, CEO and founder of Oslo-headquartered CHOOSE. “Together, we are taking an end-to-end approach with a deep focus on delivering calculation methodologies in line with the latest industry guidance and seamless access to both immediately available and frontier climate solutions.”

The CHOOOSE platform has been selected by a number of airlines including Southwest, Avianca, Japan Airlines, LATAM, Air Canada, Finnair, Iberia, Norwegian and British Airways.

Christopher Surgenor

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Shell, Accenture and American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) have joined forces to launch Avelia, a blockchain-powered digital sustainable aviation fuel book-and-claim platform for business travel. Offering around 1 million gallons of SAF, enough, they say, to power nearly 15,000 individual business traveller flights from London to New York, the partners claim Avelia is the largest book-and-claim pilot at launch. It has been developed by Shell and Accenture, with technical support from the Energy Web Foundation, and includes Amex GBT’s travel management services to aggregate global business demand for SAF, with the aim of stimulating SAF supply and helping the aviation industry’s pathway towards net zero emissions. Book-and-claim enables airlines and their business customers to simultaneously reduce emissions in their respective scopes. It allows travellers to pay for SAF and claim the benefits even if SAF is not available at their departure airport, and is instead fed into another aircraft at an airport where it is available. The partners say Avelia will ensure transparency and accountability by avoiding issues such as double-counting.

“SAF is a key enabler of decarbonisation in the aviation industry, and it’s available today. However, it’s currently scarce and costs more than conventional jet fuel,” said Jan Toschka, President, Shell Aviation. “Avelia will help trigger demand for SAF at scale, providing confidence to suppliers like us to further increase investment in production, and in turn helping to lower the price point for these fuels.”

The three launch partners are the platform’s first customers and welcomed other corporations to join it and their efforts “to drive industry change”. Shell has committed to purchasing the environmental attributes equivalent to 100,000 gallons of SAF over the pilot phase of the Avelia programme. It says the commitment will be increased “as soon as more SAF is available” in order to achieve its ambition to abate 45% of Shell’s corporate travel emissions through SAF by 2030.

Rachel Barton, Europe Strategy Lead at Accenture, said the vision for the Avelia platform was to bring airlines, corporates, cargo players and SAF suppliers together “in a trusted ecosystem that no individual company could build or access on its own.” She added: “Blockchain technology will be piloted to help ensure trust via data integrity, validate proof of ownership and enable transparent tracking of the environmental benefits of SAF for customers.”

Scalable co-investment models that allow companies to co-fund the cost of SAF are crucial to significantly scale SAF supply and use, say the partners. Once approved by industry bodies as an acceptable form of emissions reduction, say the partners, Avelia could enable airlines and companies who choose SAF to authenticate, record and report the associated emissions reduction benefits of SAF towards their voluntary ESG reporting.

“An industry-accepted carbon accounting mechanism, like book-and-claim, is key for such programmes to credibly grow,” they believe. “Avelia’s data security and credibility are key to reaching scientific and market consensus for ways to allocate SAF’s environmental attributes and help accelerate the decarbonisation of aviation.”

Paul Abbott, CEO of Amex GBT, said: “A truly viable route to decarbonising air travel is now open for business. We’re calling on all companies to join us and share the costs and benefits of SAF across the travel and aviation sectors. Airlines will gain access to the buying capacity of businesses, drawing from Amex GBT’s 19,000 customers around the world.”

The development of the Avelia book-and-claim platform was welcomed by Lauren Uppink Calderwood, Head of Aviation, Travel and Tourism at the World Economic Forum. “We look forward to integrating learnings from these efforts into our broader SAFc Framework programme. Sharing the price premium of SAF offers exciting potential to address the aviation industry’s supply-and-demand impasse over scaling SAF.”

Elena Schmidt, Executive Director of the standards body Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB), said book-and-claim had the potential to significantly increase market access to SAF. “It allows airlines and their customers to invest in SAF and purchase its environmental claims without needing to be tied to a production site,” she said. “As long as the value chain is based on a robust system, such as the one developed by RSB in collaboration with our multi-stakeholder community, the net environmental effect of SAF will be ensured. RSB supports innovative and collaborative partnerships that build a more sustainable environment and bio-based circular economy, and so applauds this new programme.

“We are delighted to welcome long-time RSB member Shell, along with Amex GBT and partners in the RSB book-and-claim development.”

Avelia uses a blockchain-powered book-and-claim method that follows the Smart Freight Centre and MIT’s Center for Transportation & Logistics SAF GHG accounting and insetting guidelines. It runs on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.

“Decarbonising hard to abate sectors like aviation will be essential to reaching a net zero future, and technology has a critical role to play in this transformation,” commented Elisabeth Brinton, Corporate VP Sustainability for Microsoft. “We’re proud to support Shell in this effort to expand the market for SAF.”

Photo: Shell