The UK-based Business Travel Association (BTA) has urged the corporate travel sector to work together to improve the distribution and use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).
The BTA’s latest ESG (environmental, social and governance) report, titled Sustainable Aviation Fuel: A Journey Towards Innovation, calls for government and industry-wide collaboration to accelerate SAF developments in order to reach net zero by 2050, and features interviews with airlines, SAF suppliers and travel management companies.
The report highlights SAF as a “key facilitator of decarbonisation”, but notes that all players in the supply chain must do more to deliver SAF at scale and educate travellers. It also underlines the role TMCs can play in initiating “uncomfortable conversations” with both travel buyers and suppliers.
While the report stressed the need for informative booking platforms and SAF credits available at the point of sale, it also calls on the UK government to draft a SAF mandate and provide grants for developers to boost production as well as offer subsidies to those purchasing and using SAF in greater quantities.
The main challenges to increasing SAF production, according to the report, are cost, infrastructural issues and a lack of government support.
BTA CEO Clive Wratten, said: “Words are no longer good enough, we need to work together to form a clear pathway to net zero. Providers, airports, TMCs and government bodies must collaborate to deliver sustainable aviation fuels and ensure the decarbonisation of aviation.
“It is our responsibility to implement government-mandated booking platforms that educate travellers on their sustainable activity at the point of sale,” he added.
Following BTA’s first ESG report released in March, the second instalment aligns SAF with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal framework to demonstrate how it can impact the environment, as well as local communities and economies.
