Q&A: Amex's Nicole Sautter on How to Decarbonise Aviation
Reducing emissions in the aviation sector is famously a very tall task.
Whilst the aviation sector currently accounts for just 3% of global emissions, projections suggest that it could be responsible for up to 22% by 2050 if left unchecked, simply because other industries are having greater successes in decarbonisation.
The difficulty in making air travel more environmentally friendly stems from the immaturity and high costs of necessary technologies.
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) has emerged as a promising solution to tackle aviation's carbon footprint. This renewable jet fuel can potentially reduce CO₂ emissions by approximately 80% compared to traditional jet fuel.
Ongoing development aims to enable aircraft to operate on 100% SAF, eliminating the need for blending with fossil fuels.
A blockchain-based initiative called Avelia, developed by Shell Aviation in collaboration with American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT), is working to decrease the aviation industry's environmental impact.
This programme connects airlines and businesses with SAF, providing traceable environmental attributes to help decarbonise air travel for individuals and companies.
Nicole Sautter, Director of Global Sustainability at Amex GBT, leads the company's efforts on this front.
With extensive experience in travel and sustainability, she is dedicated to creating a more sustainable future for travel, particularly focusing on aviation decarbonisation.
She shares her insight with Sustainability Magazine.
What is Amex GBT and how does it positively contribute to lower-emissions and energy efficiency?
Amex GBT is the world’s leading software and services company for travel, expenses and meetings and events.
With nearly 20,000 customers of all sectors and sizes, every year we are responsible for managing travel for millions of people around the globe for business — we move the working world.
We are relentlessly focused on driving measurable environmental progress and helping clients make corporate travel more sustainable.
Through our marketplace, we help aggregate demand from our clients and connect them with our network of preferred suppliers and business partners.
We offer solutions to help clients track and report carbon emissions from business travel, influence traveler choice during the booking process, procure greener by adding a price on carbon emitted from business travel, compensate for residual emissions via independent third party verified offsets and finally invest in net zero via decarbonisation solutions and SAF.
We help drive the industry towards net zero by accelerating the decarbonisation of aviation with SAF and unlocking investment. We strive to make SAF business as usual for business travel.
Today, SAF represents less than 1% of all aviation fuel used globally. We envision a future with billions of gallons of SAF displacing fossil- based jet fuel.
This type of transformation is only achievable with public-private partnership. For SAF volumes to meaningfully increase, investment must be directed towards supply and demand, unlocking new technologies, production pathways and sustainable feedstocks.
The private sector can help scale SAF through the power of procurement.
How do the new SAF commitments by the UK government and other countries impact the energy and aviation sectors?
SAF is widely considered a critical solution to address emissions from air travel and for reaching the industry’s net zero by 2050 target.
SAF is available today — but it requires significant investment and collaboration across the industry to scale. Scaling SAF must be government enabled and private sector led.
In the UK, we welcome the hybrid approach between the recent introduction of a 10% mandate for SAF. Taking a more concerted carrot approach to scaling SAF, the US government recently awarded nearly US$300m for projects supporting SAF and low-emission aviation technologies.
There is no one-size-fits-all policy approach to scaling SAF — we need a mix of carrot and stick interventions that view SAF in a global market context.
SAF has a crucial role to play in aviation’s global decarbonisation journey and the UK government recognises this. However, on its current trajectory, the UK is falling behind other nations in its SAF manufacturing capability.
A UK SAF industry could create tens of thousands of jobs, provide significant GVA contributions and boost the UK’s emerging green economy. The 10% mandate will help unlock SAF production in the UK by sending clear demand signals to the market.
However, more production capacity is needed and financiers are looking for revenue certainty. Greater government support is required to turbocharge the UK SAF industry and to develop more SAF plants to ensure the UK’s energy security.
The accelerated introduction of the announced revenue certainty mechanism could help fill that gap.
In terms of SAF feedstocks and production pathways in the UK, it is important to balance what is practical and commercial proven today, i.e. HEFA-based SAF, versus tomorrow, such as alcohol-to-jet, Fischer-Tropsch and eventually power-to-liquid fuels. Good energy policy is good SAF policy.
Accelerating the UK’s energy transition will benefit all sectors, including aviation, as excess renewable energy is of strategic importance to UK domestic SAF production.
I am excited about the progress achieved in the adoption of solar and wind, and particularly the new research and innovation regarding energy storage and infrastructure.
I think the UK has an increasingly narrow opportunity to develop a leading domestic SAF industry and help create a long-term viable future for the aviation industry.
Both the US and EU have recognised this opportunity. Historically, the US has been a large producer of renewable fuels through the federal Renewable Fuel Standard and blenders tax credit policies, augmented by several state-level programmes and further promoted by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
The EU is also progressing with the ‘Fit for 55’ policy package including several complimentary supply and demand-side mechanisms.
Can you elaborate on the role that Amex GBT plays in advancing sustainability within the aviation industry and what specific initiatives are currently underway?
Business travel has a unique role to play in scaling SAF and accelerating the decarbonisation of aviation.
This community is highly influential and concentrated compared to leisure travel — on certain flights business travellers make up 12% of passengers but 75% of airline revenue.
As one of the world’s largest aggregators of business travel spend, we pool demand for SAF from our clients and help channel investment toward the scaling of it. By sending purchasing signals to the market at this critical time, we give confidence to investors and producers of SAF.
Companies that sign up for our SAF program have access to Avelia, one of the world’s first blockchain-powered book-and-claim sustainable solutions for SAF.
Developed by Shell and Accenture with the support of the Energy Web Foundation, together with Amex GBT, Avelia connects airlines and businesses globally to bridge the cost gap of SAF compared to conventional fuel and open access to its environmental benefits to more parties.
It aims to generate the scale of demand necessary to help the sector transition to net zero emissions by 2050.
Avelia was the largest SAF book-and-claim pilot at time of launch in June 2022, offering around 1 million gallons of SAF. The platform has since injected more than 10 million gallons of SAF into the existing fuel network.
Amex GBT has extended its SAF partnership with Shell to further support Avelia’s growth as a proven, accredited and trackable option for corporates to invest in decarbonisation.
To date, more than 30 corporations and airlines have signed on to Avelia including Google, Delta Air Lines, Bank of America, Cathay Pacific, Emirates and more. There are now nine airports around the world where SAF has been injected into the fuel network through Avelia, including London Heathrow.
Amex GBT plans to expand the Avelia programme with its growing customer base and marketplace for business travel. Whereas business travel has been at the forefront of SAF adoption and enablement, the opportunity for broader value chain activation remains strong: air freight customers, aircraft financiers, aircraft manufacturers, fuel producers and others.
Amex GBT is also a strategic investor in the United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund (UAV SFF), a first-of-its-kind investment vehicle designed to support startups focused on reducing carbon emissions associated with air travel on a lifecycle basis by accelerating the research, production and technologies associated with SAF. We are the only business travel software and service company investor in the UAV SFF.
What are the anticipated next steps for the UK’s Labour government/other global bodies in supporting and expanding the use of SAF and how can industry stakeholders contribute to these efforts?
As one of the most viable decarbonisation pathways for aviation, scaling SAF must be at the forefront of priorities in both corporations and governments alike.
Scaling SAF to reach net zero aviation by 2050 requires all parts of the aviation value chain to play their part. The private sector can drive progress through continued investment, research and development, and the public sector plays a pivotal role in setting the regulatory framework, instilling confidence in corporations that their commitments will yield longer-term benefits.
The new Labour government has repeatedly echoed the importance of SAF for decarbonisation, energy independence and economic growth — including in the King’s Speech.
This public commitment speaks volumes and underscores the urgency for the government to support corporate efforts to scale production at speed and is a commitment that must be reflected on a global scale as well.
We urge governments to create a stable policy landscape that supports the scaling of SAF by enabling and encouraging SAF production, use and R&D into SAF feedstock and production pathway diversification.
Formal recognition of book-and-claim for SAF and prioritising renewable fuel production for hard to electrify sectors such as aviation are also of paramount importance. Scaling SAF must be seen in a global market context and the UK will require a holistic, not piecemeal, policy to scaling SAF that is compatible with international markets.
Formal acceptance of book-and-claim — as our Avelia SAF program uses — can build further airline, corporate and consumer confidence in SAF and drive the Jet Zero agenda forward.
This would mean that SAF does not need to be physically available at every local airport — instead, the purchased SAF is ‘booked’ into the fuel system and can be ‘claimed’ on any aircraft, meaning the environmental benefits are still delivered without the additional complexity of delivering fuel to a specific consumer.
Book-and-claim enables suppliers to reach more customers while demonstrating market demand and supporting the development of SAF manufacturing.
Clear and consistent accounting and reporting standards are vital to unlocking significant, long-term investment from corporate aviation consumers for the environmental attributes of SAF.
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