Watch: How airlines can build sustainability into their strategy

Title: How airlines can build sustainability into their strategy
Duration: 7:10

Description:
Joel Makower, Editor of GreenBiz.com, interviews Amelia DeLuca, Vice President of Sustainability at Delta Air Lines. Amelia shares why airlines should make sustainability an integral part of their business strategy, ensuring that everyone can enjoy the benefits of aviation for generations to come.

[Background music plays]
Bright, uplifting music

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The Shell™ pecten logo appears, then fades. A three-dimensional model of Earth rotates while white silhouettes of planes fly across the globe. On the right side of the screen, a shot of Amelia DeLuca talking with no audio.

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This episode: How airlines can build sustainability into their strategy, Part 1 of 3

{Joel Makower sits onscreen. Facing him is Amelia DeLuca. The camera alternates between speakers.}

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Joel Makower
Executive Editor
GreenBiz.com

Joel Makower:
I’m Joel Makower. We’re talking about what will it take to make aviation sustainable with Amelia DeLuca, Managing Director for Sustainability at Delta Air Lines.

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Amelia DeLuca
Vice President, Sustainability
Delta Air Lines

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Since taping this interview, DeLuca has been promoted to Vice President

Joel Makower:
Amelia, let’s start with your remit at Delta. Talk a little bit about what you do there.

Amelia DeLuca:
So, thinking about sustainability at an airline or sustainability at Delta, the biggest focus we have is on our environmental footprint, and obviously, sustainability means a lot of things. There's social sustainability, which we'll come back to later. There's also financial sustainability, which, of course, an airline coming out of a pandemic, we're very focused on financial sustainability.

And so, the main focus of my purview is on environmental sustainability, and what that essentially means is that we are running a marathon in our industry. We are a hard-to-decarbonise industry, meaning we are one of the last ones that will get to net-zero because of some of the challenges that we'll discuss.

And so, it's essentially being mindful of: What are we doing today, and how can we minimize our footprint today? While also looking out into the future and making sure, not only do we have the right commitments, but we have the plan to get there – from policies to coalitions to how we bring our customers along with us. And so, it's a really exciting journey. I will say, our greenhouse gas emissions are predominantly driven by jet fuel.

{A woman refueling an airplane appears on screen}
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Video footage provided by Delta Air Lines

And so, when we think about sustainability at the airline, consumers will often think about the products that they see onboard, which is an important part of my job. But at the end of the day, we're laser-focused on the 98% of the emissions that come from jet fuel. And when we think about that, that is really where the challenge lies for our industry.

Joel Makower:
Delta has been at the forefront of commitments to reduce greenhouse gas – I think the first commercial airline to commit to being carbon neutral. What's driving that for Delta?

Amelia DeLuca:
If you really step back, the airline industry, but, in particular, Delta is an industry that's built upon trust – trust with our consumers – and purpose. Because we aren't just flying airplanes.

{A businesswoman dropping off her luggage as she arrives at the airport appears on screen}
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Video footage provided by Delta Air Lines

We connect people to people, people to places, people to new opportunities.

{A person using a kiosk to check-in for their flight appears on the screen. They print out a luggage tag before attaching it to their luggage}
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Video footage provided by Delta Air Lines

And so, there's a responsibility that comes with what we do every day. And as we started to, as a society, note the impact that our industry was having, all of a sudden, the light went off in our head saying, “Well, actually now we also have an obligation to protect our planet.”

And so, stepping back in 2012, we were the first and only airline to voluntarily cap our emissions at 2012 levels. Again, that is significantly in front of anything else that's happening right now. Then in March of 2020, to your point, we went one step further and committed to carbon neutrality. And what that essentially was doing was acknowledging that we don't have the perfect solution today. Again, we're not an industry that's going to get to net-zero at 2030. But acknowledging that we can still have an impact globally, both within what we do every day – so our own flying by really managing and optimizing our emissions. But looking further into the places that we fly and acknowledging that climate change obviously extends well beyond aviation.

Joel Makower:
How’s it going? Talk a little bit about where you are on that roadmap.

Amelia DeLuca:
I get asked a lot, “How did the pandemic impact your commitment to carbon neutrality?” What it really allowed us to do during the pandemic was to step back and have a second to really pause and say, “What are we going to do? What are the structures we need to set up internally and externally to be successful?” And then to really dive deep into the carbon offsets market because that's a core part of the work that we're doing today with carbon neutrality.

The other benefit from the pandemic, of course, many people know if you think back to the scenes, many people remember from the early days, the airplanes that were parked. So, the one benefit of the pandemic within our own greenhouse gas emissions footprint was that we were actually able to accelerate our fleet retirement plan. We retired 200 jets last year, and every new jet that we bring online has anywhere between 20 to 25% improved fuel efficiency.

{A Delta plane parked at an airport gate appears on screen}
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Video footage provided by Delta Air Lines

We measure our success as an airline on essentially how efficient we're able to fly. And so, the pandemic actually aided and accelerated a lot of that work. And so, from that standpoint, it's really positive. Now as we emerge, it's great because we've got these ambitions. We've got a level of understanding and commitment internally that's incredible. And that is matched by our consumers, by governments, by investors, and by corporates. So, all of it’s coming together under the perfect storm, and we couldn't be more thrilled about what's to come.

Joel Makower:
So, a lot of people see sustainability as this nice-to-do, bolt-on to the real business at hand here, but it sounds like Delta is really baking sustainability into its strategy. Tell me why that is.

Amelia DeLuca:
Well, I think the days are gone where this can be led because of an altruistic approach. “I feel like I should do this because it'll be good.” Or “I feel like maybe I should do this because I'd like to give back. The criticality of this nature in our business – and not just our business; everyone's businesses – is becoming more heightened by the day.

But you start with investors, and investors are looking at companies to say, “You have a significant risk because of the climate transition that's in front of you, and I want to know, in a transparent way, what is that risk? How much, quantifiably, is that going to impact your business, and what is your plan for it?” Because investors are saying, “I don't know where to invest anymore, because I don't know who's going to make it or not make it through this transition.”

So, you've got a lot of investors that are saying, “I need to know everything. I need to know your plans. I need to know it's integrated. I need to know that your Board cares, that your executives care, that your employees care.”

And then there's the second part, which Delta is a brand that our consumers love, but it's also a brand that attracts great talent because we are a great employer. We've always taken care of our employees. When we've got that, that next generation is here, that infamous next generation that's coming that cares about the environment. They're here, not to mention that everyone else has just been through this profound impact from a pandemic that has caused everyone to step back and say, “What am I doing with my life, and what do I really care about?”

Joel Makower:
Thinking ahead to the middle of this decade, what's the story you hope to be able to tell about Delta’s sustainability journey?

Amelia DeLuca:
My number one most important thing is that no traveler ever has to choose between seeing the world and saving the world.

{A person looking out of an airplane window at the sky appears on screen}
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Video footage provided by Delta Air Lines

I think right now we are all faced with this looming crisis, this threat. We hear it every day in the news, our kids talk to us about it, our neighbors talk to us about it. I want people to have the confidence to be able to continue to travel.

The reason why that's so important to me is because sustainability, again, under the little circle, it’s environmental and financial, but it's also social sustainability. Under social sustainability comes an obligation to have an equitable society. Air travel is key to that. It's an industry today that is not available to everyone, and, in fact, used to not be available to anyone when it was first introduced and was so expensive. We don't want to go back to that world, where air travel is something that is not available to everyone. When I think about the middle of this decade, I think about using air travel for good.

{A Delta plane flies over snow-covered mountains and a semi-frozen body of water}
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Video footage provided by Delta Air Lines

Not only to fuel the innovations that come with the environmental aspects of tackling climate change for both our industries and all industries, but really making sure that this industry is a force of good when it comes to not only protecting habitats, protecting small landowners, protecting biodiversity, but also making sure that we continue to build up those communities that have not had access to air travel in the past.

So, for me, that's the most important thing is to find this balance between making sure we do good for the planet, but also never losing sight of everything that is on our planet in terms of the people as well as the habitats that they're in.

Joel Makower:
Thank you, Amelia.

Amelia DeLuca:
Thank you, Joel.

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