Eco-friendly flying key to responsible tourism
The reliance on aviation fuel is the crux of the problem around efforts to decarbonise air travel
image for illustrative purpose
Responsible Tourism is about "making better places for people to live in and better places for people to visit." Responsible Tourism requires that operators, hoteliers, governments, local people and tourists take responsibility, take action to make tourism more sustainable. The World Tourism Organization defines sustainable tourism as "tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities". The Achilles heel of the tourism sector is aviation. 81 per cent of aviation emissions come from passenger travel; and 19 per cent from freight. From passenger aviation, 60 per cent of emissions come from international travel, and 40 per cent from domestic. The failure of the aviation industry to decarbonise endangers the future of travel and tourism for the outbound industry, travellers and holidaymakers. And most seriously, for those destinations dependent upon aviation for tourism, their essential source of foreign exchange.
The emissions efficiency of aviation has shown remarkable improvement since 1950 through advances in design and technology, larger aircraft sizes and increased passenger load factors. Aviation's contribution to climate change - 3.5 per cent of warming, or 2.5 per cent of CO2 emissions, But as other sectors decarbonise, aviation will become a larger proportion of emissions.
Neste is the biggest company for production of sustainable fuel. The company's transformation and profitability have a solid foundation. The company's journey towards a more sustainable future started in the 2000s, when it introduced its NEXBTL technology that allows Neste to turn a wide variety of renewable raw materials into premium products.
Neste MY Renewable Diesel keeps making transportation more sustainable together with consumers and partners such as McDonald's and HAVI. For example, in the Netherlands used cooking oil from McDonald's waste stream is turned into Neste MY Renewable Diesel to power HAVI's logistics. Neste's renewable diesel results in significant GHG emission reduction over the fuel's lifecycle compared to fossil diesel.
Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel is a renewable fuel for aircrafts. In its neat form, the fuel helps reduce lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80 per cent compared to fossil jet fuel use. Neste is working with major airlines, such as American Airlines, Lufthansa, KLM, and Finnair on sustainable aviation, and the product is already used by over 10 airlines globally. Neste just announced a capacity modification investment in its Rotterdam refinery. Together with its Singapore expansion, Neste will have the capacity of producing 1.5 million tons of sustainable aviation fuel annually by the end of 2023.
The latest addition to Neste's renewable product portfolio is Neste RE, a 100 per cent renewable and recycled raw material for plastics production. It takes on the global plastics waste challenge by bringing alternative solutions to the plastics and chemicals industry. In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development SDG target 8.9, aims to "by 2030, devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products". The importance of sustainable tourism is also highlighted in SDG target 12.b. which aims to "develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable development impacts for sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products".
The reliance on aviation fuel is the crux of the problem around efforts to decarbonise air travel. There are projects in full swing investigating the development of zero and low emission planes, including electric. These could offer carbon free solutions, if charged using renewable energy. Exciting progress is being made. The Norwegian government has set a goal of making all short haul flights electric by 2040, and EasyJet hopes to fly electric planes on some routes by 2027.
However, as it stands, with existing levels of focus and funding, it could be two or three decades before these become commercially viable even for short routes. Whilst exciting, this is not soon enough to offer the significant, global reduction in emissions needed to meet the 1.5°C target. While there is a real future for low carbon flying, there is no universal investment and commitment to it. In the meantime there is no alternative to a reduction in demand for aviation until the world can decarbonise air travel. For most people this will change holiday patterns. They might take fewer holidays with flights. It might mean more holidays closer to home, or just fewer but longer holidays involving a flight. For some, it might rule out a flying holiday altogether.
