The Greenwash Effect: Sustainable targets don’t land for all

The air cargo industry is under pressure to aid the environment by reducing carbon emissions.  

But as industry claims of sustainability compliance proliferate, skeptics question if green alternatives like sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) are being marketed to propagate a greenwashing effect — an attempt to capitalize on growing demand for environmentally sound products without real advances. 

Some 450 billion liters of SAF will be required to meet IATA’s ambitious goal of reaching “net zero” by 2050, TIACA Director General Glyn Hughes told Air Cargo Next.  

But only 300 million liters of SAF were produced globally in 2022, according to IATA. While that’s 200% more than in 2021, it is less than 1% of the projected need. What’s more, SAF costs about three times as much as jet fuel. 

It could cost $1 trillion to decarbonize the aviation sector, according to industry experts. IATA says the sector accounts for roughly 2.5% of annual global emissions. Meanwhile, SAF is being consumed faster than it is produced.  

“The industry’s goal to achieve net zero carbon by 2050 isn’t particularly ambitious,” Cait Hewitt, policy director at the Aviation Environment Federation (AEF), a British-based NGO campaigner for aviation impacts, told Air Cargo Next. “It simply reflects the targets implied by the Paris Agreement on climate change, which almost every country in the world signed up to, to limit the risk of catastrophic global warming.

“The reason why it feels ambitious — almost ludicrous even — is that airlines spent decades talking about climate change while (a) pushing for exemptions to the various laws and policies that have helped drive decarbonization in other sectors and (b) continuing to rely on fossil fuels. They must have known the game would be up at some point.” 

The air cargo industry has shown some progress, but is a long way from hitting its targets, Hewitt added. 

“This is hard to do when the technology that will decarbonize your industry is still in its infancy,” according to a report by AEF. “We have yet to see a single zero-emission flight on a commercial-sized plane. This limits airlines’ options for what they can market to environmentally conscious consumers.” 

Claiming ‘carbon neutral’ 

Delta Airlines and KLM have recently been accused of greenwashing. 

“There’s always been greenwash in relation to aviation — airports claiming to be ‘carbon neutral’ for example, but not counting emissions from the flights that take off and land or offering green points (free air miles) as rewards for customers buying eco wine,” Hewitt said.  

“But now the stakes are getting higher and some of those claims are being challenged in court. KLM’s ‘Fly responsibly’ campaign is being challenged in a Dutch court for misleading consumers, and Delta is now facing court action in California over ‘carbon neutral’ claims.” 

Delta declined to provide a comment to Air Cargo Next, but did release a statement denying the claims made in the lawsuit. 

A Dutch court found the claims against KLM “admissible,” Caroline van der Veeken, a press officer for KLM, told Air Cargo Next.  

“KLM is ambitious when it comes to its climate approach and would like to involve its customers in the subject,” she said. “We are learning more and more about communication on sustainability, and we keep looking at our communications to determine what can be improved and made even more transparent.” 

Carriers using SAF 

Over the past seven years, the U.S. Government Accountability Office tracked SAF production and use by major U.S. airlines. Backed by the White House, the government authorized a Grand Challenge operation in 2022 to produce 3 billion gallons of SAF by 2030. 

“In fiscal year 2022, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $34.5 million funding opportunity to improve the science and infrastructure for converting waste into biofuels and help support the 2050 goal,” the GAO report states. 

As 2022 closed, SAF production in the U.S. was at 15.8 million gallons— 0.52% of its cumulative goal targeted in the next seven years. 

• United Airlines leads U.S. carriers in SAF use, with a commitment to triple use from 1.4 million gallons in 2021 to 4.2 million gallons by the end of 2023, according to a recent White House report. 
• Delta Airlines has also committed to 10% SAF use in all its flights by 2030, per the same report. It has purchased 55 million gallons of SAF annually through 2030. 
• American Airlines agreed to a 10 million SAF deal with Prometheus Fuels by 2025.  
• Alaska Airlines, JetBlue and Southwest Airlines have all made SAF commitments as well, with JetBlue making additional partnerships with electric and hydrogen aircraft development, the report says.

SAF production (millions of gallons) and use in the U.S. from 2016 

Source: Environmental Protection Agency and Bureau of Transportation Statistics. | GAO-23-105300 

The European Union agreed to a deal, ReFuelEU, in April to require European airlines to commit to using 2% of SAF in all flights by 2025 with an increase to 20% by 2035 and 70% by 2050. 

“From a production capacity and demand point of view, the SAF industry today is still at an early stage of development with an estimated EU supply of less than 0.05% of total jet fuel demand in 2020,” the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) reported.  

A pathway outlined 

While government incentives are aiding in cost reductions for SAF — the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act and Europe’s proposed Net Zero Industry Act being examples — experts agree that sufficient government support, along with production, are roadblocks to reaching net zero. 

Willie Walsh, director general at IATA, told Air Cargo Next that there is a need to emphasize scaling up production and government incentives. 

“The cost to transition to net zero is significant, probably in the order of a trillion U.S. dollars. And therefore, we have to recognize that this will have an impact on ticket prices, cargo prices — because anybody who says that transitioning to net zero comes at no cost advantages is misleading,” Walsh said.  

“So we have a credible pathway, we’re committed to do it, we have significant opportunities to develop sustainable aviation fuel.” 

SAF production is on track to scale up, according to a report released this week by IATA. 

“If renewable energy production reaches 69 billion liters by 2028 as estimated, the trajectory to 100 billion liters by 2030 would be on track,” the report said. “If just 30% of that produced SAF, the industry could achieve 30 billion liters of SAF production by 2030.” 

These numbers are derived from projected renewable fuel refinery expansions as well as new refineries across North America, Europe and Asia, according to the report. 

However, EASA reported that 104 new SAF plants would be required in Europe alone to hit its targets by the 2050 deadline. 

Despite this, the pathway to net zero is backed by scientific evidence, Julio Friedmann, chief scientist Carbon Direct, a New York-based climate data company, told Air Cargo Next. 

“These goals are attainable. They are also straightforward,” he said. “That doesn’t make them easy. That doesn’t make them cheap. But yes, they are attainable. There’s no mystery about what to do and how to do it. Or if we can do it.  

“The aviation sector is the hardest of all sectors to decarbonize. This has been known for a long time,” he added. “So the primary ways to decarbonize planes are sustainable aviation fuels and carbon dioxide removal. That’s the menu.” 

Understanding SAF production 

Helene Goury, product manager at Neste, the largest producer of SAF, said greenwashing concerns are justified, though not entirely on point. 

When customers purchase SAF, they must understand what they are buying and how it works, Goury said during a panel discussion at the World Cargo Symposium in April. This means recognizing that SAF must be mixed with traditional kerosene jet fuel. 

Further, interpreting SAF analysis reports correctly is essential to understanding how the fuel helps reduce carbon emissions efficiently. These reports show customers that it is working, she added.  

A number of regulatory and independent organizations provide these reports, including IATA, the U.S. Department of Energy and Government Accountability Office, the Federal Aviation Administration, the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Energy Agency. These organizations track SAF production, cost, use and carbon emission reduction over a period of time, typically annually. 

SAF use in Europe, March 2022

SAF works by mixing traditional kerosene jet fuel with sustainably collected waste products such as used oils, animal fats, algae, and other agricultural residues. It can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80%, lowering carbon output, according to the U.S Department of Energy.  

The method is sound and experts agree it is also the most efficient method that exists. The obstacles include available feedstock and confusion surrounding SAF’s benefits, the Aviation Environment Federation’s Hewitt said. 

“There are no feedstocks that can be easily and sustainably ramped up —there’s no spare land for biofuels because we need it for food and forestry, for example,” Hewitt said.  

“And while it’s possible to make liquid fuels using carbon from the air and hydrogen from water, you also need masses of renewable electricity to power the production process.  

“The other issue is SAFs don’t actually reduce the emissions from flying,” she added. “They’re hydrocarbons and emit just as much CO2 as kerosene once they’re burned in an engine. Any emissions saving is, as with offsets, a ‘net’ one, related to fuel production, and that inevitably creates lots of opportunity for confusion and double counting of emissions reductions.” 

Still, SAF is the choice for airlines to make their operations more sustainable because it is “the easiest to deploy without making a transformational change,” Hewitt said. It can power long- and short-haul flights and it can be mixed with jet kerosene.  

Keeping up with demand 

Questions remain as to whether it can meet industry targets.  

Economic growth and demand for travel in the next three decades will impact this, with about 16 million flights by 2050, a 41% increase compared with 2019, according to EuroControl, a civil-military organization dedicated to European aviation. IATA said this has been factored into projections for SAF production and supply.  

AEF’s Hewitt disagrees. More flying simply won’t help industry achieve the goal, she said. 

“It’s true that the [aviation industry] will be harder to decarbonize than pretty much every other sector, but that’s why there should have been innovation and investment happening decades ago into zero-emissions flights,” Hewitt said. “Instead, manufacturers focused on tweaks to get better efficiencies, while the industry grew so fast that those efficiencies couldn’t even level off the emissions — global aviation CO2 kept growing, relentlessly, till the pandemic. 

“The aviation sector must achieve net zero — there’s no alternative given the climate crisis now widely acknowledged by governments and the private sector,” she added. “But the technologies are so far from where they need to be for zero emissions flight and carbon removal that flying less is going to have to be part of the answer.”