Carbon Offsetting: Does BizAv Understand It?

Many business aircraft operators and owners today subscribe to carbon offsetting programs to help offset the carbon-based greenhouse gases (GHGs) their aviation operations generate. But what are the common areas for confusion concerning these?

Lots of carbon offsetting programs exist, and the concept of using it as a fossil fuel emissions-reduction tool has been around now for more than 30 years.

To maximize the financial and environmental social-governance (ESG) benefits they receive from their carbon-offsetting activities, the programs and their customers often exchange their offsetting credits within a worldwide framework of national and international emissions trading schemes.

They do so to make what has become a $2 billion-a-year market more liquid, more globally accessible and – hopefully – more effective in reducing the overall amount of carbon-based GHGs that the participating companies and organizations release into the atmosphere in performing their operations.

Of the many carbon-offsetting subscription programs from which Business Aviation community members can choose to use, they almost invariably decide to participate only in programs which have been verified and rated by one or more of a clutch of internationally recognized verification agencies.

These agencies exist specifically to try to ensure that the atmospheric carbon-reduction amounts which individual offsetting projects around the world assert to generate are real, and that those claimed carbon-removal benefits are in fact permanent.

Unfortunately, throughout the years, various individual offsetting projects have been proven to be ineffective at best. 

At worst, some have been found to increase the amount of carbon entering the atmosphere, often because of an inability to monitor, control and counter continuing deforestation in the major tropical forests in which they perform their activities.

Despite the best efforts of aviation trade associations and business advisors to educate their members and clients about the nature and the extent of the benefits the clients can receive from subscribing to carbon-offsetting programs, areas of uncertainty and confusion remain.

Does Carbon Offsetting Make Jet Operators Carbon Neutral?

For instance, says Maureen Gautier, Sustainability and Future Workforce Manager for the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA), while in general EBAA members “do know a lot about offsetting...a lot of mixed messages around offsetting” still exist.

For various reasons, even now some BizAv operators and owners don’t realize that carbon offsetting does not provide the means to becoming carbon-neutral, according to Gautier.

“It’s interesting, because from EBAA’s perspective we want to push our members to use offsets, but we also do not want them to use the excuse of offsets to pursue business as usual,” she says.

EBAA continues to educate its members that carbon offsetting “is not a way of reducing emissions” completely.

“There are different pathways to reaching net zero [which is the entire aviation industry’s stated 2050 goal for its business operations, flying and non-flying], and offsetting is only the final bit,” she explains.

“It should be used where you have already reduced [your carbon emissions] as much as you can,” to achieve the last few percentage points of carbon reduction needed to reach net-zero performance, says Gautier. “It really shouldn’t be business as usual with [reliance upon] carbon offsetting on the side” to claim carbon neutrality.

In fact, she adds, if an organization relies purely upon carbon offsetting as the only means it uses to try to reach net zero, that “can even lead to more carbon emissions, because you’re thinking you’re removing emissions, but you’re not.”

The longer any organization relies only upon carbon-offsetting as its method of trying to achieve net-zero performance, the more the organization is releasing additional carbon-based GHGs into the atmosphere, producing a cumulative effect, according to Gautier.

How Effective is Carbon Offsetting in Business Aviation

To reveal the true role and effectiveness of carbon offsetting in helping the entire aviation sector reach net zero by 2050, EBAA points to the work carried out by the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG), a coalition of aviation organizations and companies, in researching and producing its recent Waypoint 2050 report on how net zero can in fact be achieved.

The Waypoint 2050 report forms an important part of ATAG’s continuing Air Transport Beyond Borders economic-research program, aimed at educating the public globally about the commercial, social and economic benefits that aviation offers the world’s population.

Waypoint 2050’s in-depth research indicates that, after the aviation industry reaches a realistic estimate of what total air passenger and traffic growth will be in the years to 2050, to reach its 2050 carbon net-zero goal the industry needs to rely on four different pathways of development.

1. Sustainable Aviation Fuel: According to Waypoint 2050, the most important of these pathways in terms of its overall contribution to reaching net zero will be aviation’s growing use of sustainable aviation fuel.
   
   The report forecasts that if aviation achieves its aspirational and new-technology objectives as it hopes, by 2050 SAF will be responsible for 53% of aviation’s total carbon reductions. This SAF will include not only jet fuel which chemically will be identical to, or very similar to, conventional jet fuel made from fossil-fuel sources.
   
   It will also include alternative fuels such as hydrogen, electrical power and hybrid-electrical power (a propulsion method which will involve a combination of turbine-engine power provided by jet fuel and electrical power, however that is provided to the aircraft).
   
   
2. New Aviation Technologies: Next as a development pathway in order of its importance to aviation’s overall 2050 carbon-reduction performance will be the development of new aviation technologies.
   
   Again assuming aviation achieves its aspirational goal for the introduction of such technologies – propulsion, aerodynamics, materials and other flight efficiency-improving technologies – those technologies will account for 34% of the overall contribution to aviation’s net-zero performance.
   
   
3. Improvements In Operational and Infrastructural Efficiencies: Third in importance will be the introduction of efficiency-enhancing improvements in flight operations and air transport infrastructure, which Waypoint 2050 forecasts will account for 7% of the overall contribution to achieving net zero in 2050.
   
   Those improvements will include more efficient air traffic control procedures, such as automated digital departure clearances and change-of-altitude permissions, direct descents and climbs, more efficient cruising altitudes, and reduced separations between aircraft.
   
   One likely improvement will be for an aircraft ‘in train’ in cruise flight to use the slipstream effects created by another aircraft flying a few kilometers ahead, on the same track, to reduce its thrust and thus reduce its fuel burn.
   
   Improvements in overall air transport infrastructure will include more direct air routes, shorter waits for landing and take-off times, and (because of an increased availability of real-time data) improved decision-making regarding weather and other operational obstacles.
   
   Also included will be improvements in airport design and operations which will reduce delays and improve schedule reliability, decreasing flight congestion and allowing aircraft to transit more rapidly between the parking ramp and the runway – both when landing and taking off.
   
   
4. Carbon Offsetting (and Other Measures): Carbon offsetting and other market-based measures come last in importance in terms of their overall contribution to aviation’s net-zero performance in 2050, according to Waypoint 2050. Such measures will account for only 6% of the overall reduction in aviation’s carbon emissions as of that date.

What are some of the common questions about carbon offsetting in Business Aviation, and where do the misconceptions and confusion arise? Continue reading this article in the AvBuyer June digital edition by clicking the link (below). Alternatively, select ‘Page 2’ to continue viewing online.