Air New Zealand says it will immediately remove its 2030 science based carbon intensity reduction target, and withdraw from the SBTi. That seems an unexpected thing to do for an airline that officially prides itself on being sustainable, so what's going on here?
Have you heard of the SBTi? If not, you're probably not alone. The abbreviation stands for the Science Based Targets Initiative, and on the face of it, it looks like a very worthy global organisation to help keep corporations on the straight and narrow.
SBTi is a joint initiative by CDP (which no longer stands for the Carbon Disclosure Project) that provides ways to measure emissions; the United Nations Global Compact for sustainable and socially responsible policies; the World Resources Institute that's been advocating for sustainable business practices since 1982; and the World Wide Fund for Nature that needs no introduction.
Money for the SBTi comes from big heavy-hitting corporations such as IKEA, Amazon (and the founder Jeff Bezos' Earth Fund), the Rockefellers' philanthropic fund, and the United Parcel Service (UPS).
SBTi worked out the world's first net zero standard, with a science based target of limiting global warming from the pre-industrial era to 1.5 degrees centigrade.
Why drop out of the SBTi then? AirNZ chief executive Greg Foran gave these reasons:
“In recent months, and more so in the last few weeks, it has also become apparent that potential delays to our fleet renewal plan pose an additional risk to the target’s achievability."
"It is possible the airline may need to retain its existing fleet for longer than planned due to global manufacturing and supply chain issues that could potentially slow the introduction of newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft into the fleet."
"As such and given so many levers needed to meet the target are outside our control, the decision has been made to retract the 2030 target and withdraw from the SBTi network immediately," Foran said.
AirN Z said it would replace its Boeing 777-300ER jets with Boeing 787-10 Dreamliners, which are more fuel efficient than earlier generations of planes. Boeing's currently embroiled in a quality problem scandal for its planes, with the US Federal Aviation Administration investigating the company.
On top of plane delivery delays, Air NZ cited the affordability and availability of alternative jet fuels - the airline has even tried using cooking oil derived fuel - and the lack of global and domestic regulatory policy support.
That does indeed sound like mission impossible for Air NZ. It makes you wonder if the airline will reach its 2050 net zero carbon emissions target by 2050 that it's committed to, as chair Therese Walsh said.
Regulatory policy support globally and domestically is probably the most critical factor here. What little is being done officially to limit global warming is far from enough. As a result, the world's already past the 1.5 C warming threshold that was agreed to in Paris in December 2015 that we mustn't overshoot. Last year was the hottest on record.
A sense of "oh well, that was just too difficult" seems to imbue global carbon reduction efforts which have to be pretty dramatic and fast, with emissions needing to halve by 2030 to slow down the globe's cooking from human activity. This seems unlikely to happen, as we continue to build energy intensive industries like artificial intelligence and IT in general, which use a ridiculous amount of energy and create huge carbon and particulate emissions.
SBTi meanwhile is mired in controversy after its board decided that it was fine for companies to use carbon credits and other environmental attribute certificates towards their net zero goals. Staff at SBTi are furious at the board statement, quite rightly saying "carbon credits are not permitted for emissions reductions according to the Corporate Net-Zero Standard, nor the Financial Institutions Guidance".
Looking at the above, maybe it was the honest thing for Air NZ to do, to drop out of the SBTi. Also, who knows what destinations there will be left to fly to in 25 years time, even if the world reaches the net zero target? Perhaps the best thing to do is to start dialling down the immediate future travel and freight plans?
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