Business Chief US and Canada January 2023 | Page 68

PLANET | SUSTAINABLE AVIATION

The biggest challenges , she says , are production capacity and the price of SAF . “ We need to increase demand for SAF to attract the investments needed to ramp-up SAF production capacity . Businesses and individual travellers can play a key role as they can create demand by choosing to make their air travel more sustainable by voluntarily paying for using SAF .”

This is where there may well be an opportunity . Once companies like Neste are able to ramp production , as is planned , then consumers , and airlines , will have more choice . It may well be that environmentally conscious consumers are willing to pay an extra US $ 50 for an average flight in the knowledge that their emissions are being significantly reduced , or it could be a differentiator for commercial airlines to include a percentage of SAF as standard . After all , aviation is a competitive industry .

So what made Fly Victor decide to start offering SAF to its customers ? “ Climate change has heavily informed the direction in which we have taken our business and brand since 2016 and the Paris Agreement , “ Fly Victor Co-CEO Toby Edwards tells Business Chief . “ We cannot ignore that a private jet can emit up to 14 times more CO2 per person than flying commercially .

“ Victor has been offering 200 % carbon offsetting on all flights as standard since 2019 . However , as SAF is now available to use as a direct in-sector emission reduction solution , providing our customers with a SAF solution was the next obvious move .” Nikhil Sachdeva , Global Lead for Sustainable Aviation at Roland Berger believes the two main barriers to SAF adoption – which are also interrelated – are scale up and cost . And while he is positive about SAFs in principle , the sheer volumes

68 January 2023