At the request of the RAeS Council following discussions across the membership, the Learned Society Board has established a new Environment Sustainability Coordination Group. There is a huge amount of effort already being expended on aviation sustainability, not least by the Society’s Greener by Design Specialist Group, but it was felt that there were still valuable additional contributions that could be offered by the Society on the subject of Sustainability.

The new group is still developing its raison d’être but key aspects of the work will include:-

– Reviewing current ‘sustainability’ activity from a global impact perspective rather than just an aviation industry view. Are there better ways to achieve the same overall impact?

– Looking at the environmental challenges from an end goal perspective, what should or could be the environmental minimum impact of aviation at some time in the future and how can we get there?

– Considering what wider policy actions need to be taken to make best use of the technology that is available today, noting that the increasing efficiency of aircraft resulting from aerodynamics and engines has led to major reductions in CO2 emissions over the past 25 years but much of the global fleet has still to be updated

We begin with three core assumptions:

1. The Earth is facing a climate crisis caused by the increase of long duration greenhouse gases in the atmospheres primarily resulting from Human activity

2. The Earth is facing a biodiversity crisis, resulting from the rapid loss of natural habit exacerbated by the increase in mono-crop production systems deemed essential to provide human food.

3. The reduction in land available for food production caused by climate change and the proposed growth of SAF bio feedstocks will increase even further population displacement and migration which cannot be acceptable

Aviation is not the most significant cause of these but our contribution to all three is set to grow both in relative terms, as easy to de-carbon activities reduce their emissions and absolutely, with the growth in demand for air travel.

There are two additional challenges that the group must consider:

The first, not new but critically important, is the economic environment under which the industry operates. Most environmental improvements come at significant cost and if there are less expensive ways of reducing the global impact these need to be identified. Resources need to be expended where they will bring the most global benefit. Aviation Net zero by 2050 is a reasonable initial goal but the current trajectory suggests that even that will be difficult and very expensive. We need to be looking at additional and/or alternative approaches that could achieve a similar reduction in CO2 emissions.

The second, and newer challenge is growing rejection of the need for net zero, exacerbated by the ‘Populist’ belief that there is no ‘climate crisis’. Because Aviation is a global business, action by individual nations will not be sufficient. It follows that some of the difficult and expensive actions that will be required to, for example, reduce CO2 emissions, may only be possible if there is an economic gain not just an environmental one.

These issues risk delaying improvements which will likely become more difficult and expensive to deliver when the effects of climate change impacts greater numbers of people and the pressure for rapid action begins to grows.

The group will be considering these issues, together with the essential requirement that approaches towards achieving net zero must themselves be sustainable in term long term, otherwise the high startup investments risk being wasted. As time allows, we aim consider wider aspect of sustainability, but CO2 emissions are the initial focus

The group expects to call upon support from the existing Specialist Group and member network. Huge quantities of information and data on the sustainability topic already exists, although there are significant gaps. If you are interested in helping with data searches or analysis please let us know at sustainability@aerosociety.com.

We aim to provide assessments and recommendations to the Council, Trustees and wider membership as appropriate.