Watch: The Role of Business Travelers in Making Aviation More Sustainable
Corporations will play a crucial role in helping the aviation industry become more sustainable by partnering with airlines to reduce the impact of business travel.
Business travellers and corporations will play a crucial role in helping the aviation industry become more sustainable by clearly understanding their emissions footprint from flying and then partnering with airlines to reduce that impact, according to a senior sustainability executive at Delta Air Lines.
Corporations are walking alongside us in this journey,鈥 Amelia DeLuca, Delta鈥檚 Vice President of Sustainability, said in an interview with Joel Makower, Editor of .
The first thing companies need to do is understand the emissions impact of their business travel along with possible solutions, says DeLuca.
Making aviation more sustainable: the role of business travelers
Key takeaways
Unlike other forms of transport, electric or hydrogen-powered aircraft are decades away.
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is a reality today but needs more support from customers, investors, and policymakers to scale more rapidly.
鈥淲e talk a lot about education. Just understand the basics of sustainability, understand your footprint, look at the data, let the data guide you to where your impact is. That transparency is so important. We know our impact as a company,鈥 she said. 鈥淪ustainable aviation fuel partnerships is a great example of something that happened fast, pretty organically. I think we're going to continue to see that evolve as we go, where we find new and creative ways to engage at an enterprise level, as well as directly between the brand and the consumer.鈥
Getting in the game with SAF
Aviation faces a steep challenge in its goal to decarbonise. Passenger traffic is expected to double over the next 20 years and experts say there is no easy solution to mitigating the sector鈥檚 emissions. Unlike with other forms of transport, electric or hydrogen-powered aircraft are decades away. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is a reality today but needs more support from customers, investors, and policymakers to scale more rapidly.
Delta has embraced sustainability as a core part of its business strategy. In 2012, the Atlanta, Georgia-based airline committed to capping its emissions at that year鈥檚 level, then followed that in 2020 with a pledge to be carbon neutral. Delta has also emerged as a big buyer of SAF and will begin taking delivery of more than 303 million litres (80 million gallons) in 2024, compared to 11 million litres (3 million gallons) a year now, DeLuca said.
鈥淚n the journey forward, sustainable aviation fuel is the most critical thing that we have to achieve our joint efforts between me as an airline and that corporation who's trying to reduce their business travel emissions,鈥 she said. 鈥淕et in the game now with us because we also want our corporations to be with us to help figure out how we engage on this as we move forward.鈥
Amelia DeLuca, Vice President of Sustainability for Delta Air Lines鈥淎 little bit of information goes a long way when you understand the impact of how your everyday habits can impact our world. There's only going to be more heightened awareness.鈥
Raising awareness, changing behaviors
As the world emerges from the pandemic with renewed ambitions to travel, Delta will start engaging business and leisure travelers about how to fly more sustainably, DeLuca said.
鈥淚 think the next most important stakeholder in this is our everyday traveler,鈥 she said. 鈥淭here is so much we can do together when the time is right. But first, with international travel just returning, the main focus right now is how do you manage travel in a post-COVID world, or still in a COVID world. After that, we're going to be asking consumers to hold hands with us.鈥
DeLuca pointed to changing consumer behaviors in other areas of sustainability, such as recycling or composting, or researching climate-friendly brands.
鈥淭hose are all things that people are choosing to do voluntarily. They're not receiving a reward. A little bit of information goes a long way when you understand the impact of how your everyday habits can impact our world. There's only going to be more heightened awareness,鈥 she said.
DeLuca said her conversations with corporate customers have her feeling optimistic despite the daunting task ahead.
鈥淓very day we read something else about how the Earth is warming more quickly than we thought, or how governments haven't passed the measures that we need, or how consumers don't care about this as much as we'd like them to be. But every day, each one of us in this space wakes up and says, 鈥榃hat can I do today to make the world a better place?鈥 For me, that's super fulfilling.鈥
Amelia DeLuca, Delta Air Lines
Amelia DeLuca is the Vice President of Sustainability at Delta Air Lines, where she is responsible for overseeing the carrier鈥檚 long-term sustainability strategy and investments. Throughout her 15-year career with Delta, she has held various global sales, revenue management and network planning positions. Amelia graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and has her M.B.A. from the University of Amsterdam.
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