Watch: Nature’s role in tackling aviation emissions
As airlines recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are once again turning their attention to reducing CO2 emissions. Until sustainable fuel and technology solutions are deployed at scale to help avoid and reduce emissions directly, the industry will need comprehensive carbon-offset programmes if it is to meet its net emissions reduction targets. The Nature Conservancy’s Chris Webb points to airlines’ opportunity to benefit from the most effective carbon sink “technology” available today: nature itself.
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While the COVID-19 pandemic hit aviation hard, the industry is charting a path to recovery. As the industry recovers, it will once again face a challenge: How to fly and emit less. Consumers are increasingly demanding that airlines take urgent action to tackle their environmental effect, yet new technologies and sustainable fuels are many years from making an impact at the scale required.
Green Biz’s Joel Makower met with Chris Webb, Head of Carbon Markets at environmental group The Nature Conservancy, to talk about how investing in forests can help solve the problem. He explains that nature-based carbon offsets, such as tree-planting and restoring wetlands, can help airlines tackle the impact of emissions on the environment and address consumer concerns.
Nature’s role in tackling aviation emissions
Description:
Joel Makower interviews Chris Webb on the role carbon offsets can play in making aviation sustainable.
Title: Chris Webb Transcript
Duration: 4:59 minutes
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Flightpath: Navigating the Route to Sustainable Aviation
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This episode
Harnessing nature to tackle emissions
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Joel Makower
Executive Editor
GreenBiz.com
Joel Makower
I'm Joel Makower, executive editor of Greenbiz.com. We're talking about what will it take to make aviation sustainable. Here with Chris Webb, head of Carbon Markets for the Nature Conservancy. So let's talk about aviation. What's the role of carbon offsets in making aviation sustainable?
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Chris Webb
Director of Climate Markets
The Nature Conservancy Europe
Chris Webb
Offsets within aviation have actually been around for a long while now. IATA has had a voluntary scheme that airlines could sign up to for over a decade to enable airlines to offer offsets to their consumers. And over time, we’ve seen more and more airlines actually use offsetting as a tool to help balance the emissions associated with some portion of their flights. That is the realm of sort of voluntary offsetting. There’s also impending the CORSIA scheme. And that scheme requires the sector to a target of net zero growth from 2020. And it’s expected that offsetting, particularly in the near-term which in this sector is probably somewhere between five and fifteen to twenty years that offsetting will be a key tool that the sector will rely on to deliver that net zero growth target.
Joel Makower
Some airline executives are taking a "wait and see" approach when it comes to offsets. They're waiting to see what kind of mandates, regulations or other things come along and also waiting to see what some of the leadership, what their peers are doing before they jump in. What would you like airline executives to know about offsets that they don't seem to quite get?
Chris Webb
Consumers and customers are rapidly demanding more of companies by way of taking action to tackle climate change. And given the aviation sector's footprint right now offsetting could be a really big part in their response to customers. so the first is, I think, customers' requirements and demands of these companies are going to change very quickly. Second, is that because of the upcoming CORSIA scheme, offsetting will be a part of how airlines tackle climate change. Our advice to companies, airlines included, is that you know this is coming. We think that those airlines that will succeed once the CORSIA scheme hits are those that have got in early and understood what it takes to generate high integrity at-scale offset projects and have built the expertise and relationships and networks to do so.
Joel Makower
How do we make sure that the trees that we're planting to offset carbon for aviation, or anything else are going to do what we set them out to do?
Chris Webb
In the last decade or so, we’ve learned a huge amount from trying different projects and different tools to help deal with that risk. And there are a number of things that projects do now to help manage that risk. One of those is at a project level where understanding those risks and building that into the design of a program is much more sophisticated than it was even five or ten years ago. The second is at a standard level. So, when you have a number of projects that all follow the same standard those standards now often use what’s called a buffer mechanism. Essentially, it’s a tool that sets aside a portion of the offsets for events that might result in those trees disappearing for one reason or another – fire, pests, other issues.
Joel Makower
How big of a role could offsets potentially play in neutralizing the environmental and climate impacts of aviation?
Chris Webb
So offsetting has a large role to play, particularly in the near-term. The CORSIA scheme I mentioned earlier has the bulk of those emissions reductions in the next decade or so coming from offsets. But ultimately over time, that will need to diminish. As we get to 2050, there is essentially a very, very small space for offsetting. While in the near-term, we see offsetting providing perhaps the majority of the emissions reductions required in the long-term that will have to go to very close to zero. so we've seen huge growth in the voluntary carbon market and in carbon offsets writ large around the world in recent times. And I think that will continue in the coming future. I think there are a couple of trends that are worth picking out there. One is, we do continue to see nature and nature-based offsets getting more and more important within the offsetting world and I think that will continue. The other is that I think companies will start to see greater expectations around the role that offsetting plays in raising their ambition. They will be held to an even higher bar in the near future than perhaps they were in previous years.
Joel Makower
Chris Webb is head of Carbon Markets for the Nature Conservancy. Thanks so much Chris.
Chris Webb
Thank you Joel.
Despite carbon-offsetting schemes being established around a decade ago, the uptake has not been significant enough to make a difference to net emission levels in aviation. Aviation’s recovery must include reaffirming its work toward its carbon-reduction goals. It’s time to take a look at how offsets can help the aviation industry tackle CO2 emissions until more sustainable solutions, such as Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and new technologies can be implemented at scale.
Passenger expectations are growing
In 2019, the world became familiar with the Swedish word “flygskam”, which literally translates as “flight shame”. It quickly became synonymous with a growing anti-flying movement and a call to action.
“Consumers and customers are rapidly demanding companies take action to tackle climate change. And offsetting could be an important part of their response to customers in the near term,” Webb said.
“Over time, we’ve seen more airlines actually use offsetting as a tool to help balance the unavoidable near-term emissions associated with some portion of their flights,” he added. “They will be held to an even higher bar in the near future than they were in previous years.”
Stricter standards and greater resilience
“Concerns about the quality and permanence of nature-based offsets have largely been addressed over time through more rigorous standards and sophisticated programme design," Webb said.
“Those standards often use what’s called a ‘buffer mechanism’. Essentially, it’s a tool that sets aside a portion of the offsets for events that might result in those trees disappearing for one reason or another – fire, pest, other issues.”
An urgent need for airlines to act
Webb warned that airlines taking a wait-and-see approach are in danger of finding themselves left behind by more proactive competitors.
“Those airlines that will likely be placed to succeed are those that have got in early and understand what it takes to generate high-integrity and at-scale offset projects, and have built the expertise and relationships and networks to do so.”
Nature: A Scalable and Viable Option to Reduce CO2 Emissions
Cost-effective nature-based projects have the potential to provide over a third of the climate mitigation needed to stabilize warming to below 2°C by 2030. We believe airlines that act today will create a positive impact on the climate while gaining a competitive advantage and improving resilience in a rapidly evolving marketplace.
Nature - A Scalable and Viable Option to Reduce CO2 Emissions
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Flightpath: Navigating the Route to Sustainable Aviation
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This episode
Nature-based solutions
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The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been real and painful. But that hasn't changed the reality that the aviation industry faces a daunting task. How to fly and emit less.
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Without mitigation
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With mitigation under industry goals
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New aircraft technologies
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Sustainable aviation fuels
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While offering the optimal way to reduce emissions, new technologies and sustainable fuels will take some time to reach scale.
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Stacked 3-D cylinder: Operations & Technology (Avoid) at the top, Sustainable Aviation Fuel (Reduce) in the middle and Carbon Credits (Offset) at the bottom. Carbon Neutral Growth by 2030 equivalent to Operations & Technology, Sustainable Aviation Fuel and half of Carbon Credits.
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Offsetting emissions now with high quality carbon credits, is not a choice. It’s a necessity.
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Your flight details SEA Seattle/Tacoma International / HAM Hamburg Germany). Would you like to offset your carbon emissions?
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Leading airlines recognise that carbon offsets help mitigate unavoidable emissions and also foster positive brand sentiment with passengers.
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Nature
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Fortunately, there is an option that is effective, scalable, and relatable: nature.
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Indonesia
Cambodia
China
India
Kenya
Ghana
Peru
Guatemala
US
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Shell offers high-quality, nature-based carbon credits from different regions around the world to mitigate aviation emissions.
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Reliable
Resilient
Verifiable
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Thanks to rigorous standards, accreditation, and planning, today’s carbon credits are also reliable, resilient, and verifiable.
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Cost-effective nature-based projects have the potential to provide over a third of the climate mitigation needed to stabilize warming to below 2°C by 2030.
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And they can be implemented at scale now to reduce the impact of carbon emissions. We believe airlines that act today will create a positive impact on the climate while gaining a competitive advantage and improving resilience in a rapidly evolving marketplace.
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Positive impact
Competitive advantage
Improve resilience
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Shell pecten
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Shell are confident that meeting the aviation industry’s CO2 reduction goals is achievable. Learn more by following our Flightpath series at shell.com/flightpath
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Follow Flightpath at shell.com/flightpath
Read: What does the aviation industry need to know about carbon offsets?
Looking to the future of sustainable aviation, Joel Makower and Chris Webb discuss where the industry is headed, and how airlines can unlock consumer demand, stay on top of emerging trends, and position themselves as leaders in the industry.
Read: How can airlines offset their CO₂ emissions?
There is immense pressure on airlines to take immediate and extensive action to reduce and offset emissions. Joel Makower and Chris Webb discuss the mounting challenges airline executives are facing, and how they can demonstrate their actions and commitments to consumers.
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