Tomorrow’s Air, an ATTA initiative focused on technology innovations to help our climate, is now offering an emission reduction service for air travel by making sustainable aviation fuel available to its community of climate conscious travelers and travel businesses. Using sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to replace fossil jet fuel enables a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of up to 80% over the fuel’s life cycle compared to using fossil jet fuel. The SAF will be produced by Neste, the world’s leading producer of SAF.
With the number of travelers expected to increase – the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) predicts global travel to grow on average by 5.8% annually to 2032, outpacing the growth of the overall economy – the urgency to act on air travel related emissions has never been greater. Sustainable aviation fuel is widely acknowledged as a key solution to helping to reduce emissions – it is already available today and can be used in existing aircraft.
Sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, is a biofuel that can be used to power aircraft. It can be made from a variety of renewable sources (feedstocks); Neste produces its sustainable aviation fuel from sustainably sourced, 100% renewable waste and residue raw materials like used cooking oil and animal fat waste. All its suppliers are required to commit to its Supplier Code of Conduct, which includes criteria on climate, environment, human and labor rights, and ethical business conduct.
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the use of sustainable aviation fuels was only 0.1% of the total jet fuel demand in 2022 so action is needed to ramp-up SAF production. Regulatory and policy support for SAF production expansion are important but will take time. However, consumers also have the opportunity to help accelerate SAFscale-up today, and this is where Tomorrow’s Air and travel come in.
How can travel companies and travelers help?
Tomorrow’s Air and Neste believe they can help make travel more sustainable with SAF by aggregating and coordinating traveler and travel business demand for it and by expanding its use. Travel businesses can now partner with Tomorrow’s Air to easily include SAF in their trip offerings, and travelers can purchase directly through the website. Travel business partners are invited to also participate in climate conscious travel education campaigns that help build awareness and enthusiasm for sustainable travel practices that help reduce the emissions from travel overall, in addition to helping reduce air travel emissions through the use of SAF.
“The members of ATTA are the leaders in sustainability and development of responsible travel practices” says ATTA CEO Shannon Stowell. “It is therefore with great pride that through this partnership, we can enable our members to continue that journey and take leadership in finding and implementing sustainable solutions not just on the ground but also in tackling the big culprit, the carbon footprint from aviation.”
“The sustainable travel community has been asking for us to support the expansion of sustainable aviation fuel since we first started introducing the topic of climate technologies, at our 2019 Climate Action Leadership Studio,” observed Tomorrow’s Air co-creator and lead Christina Beckmann. “Our research shows us that our company partners and individual travelers are interested in reducing and cleaning up the emissions from their travels. What’s held them back can be boiled down to two things: trust and cost, and with this partnership we hope to address both for them.”
“For travelers, a meaningful measure to minimize the emissions from flying in the short term, is sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Neste is very inspired by the support from the travel community and sees it as a critical partner in decarbonizing air travel alongside key actions from all key players: governments, airlines, airports, travel agencies and customers alike," said Susanne Bouma, Head of Partnerships & Programs from Neste's Renewable Aviation business unit.
Learn more about sustainable aviation fuel, why Tomorrow’s Air chose Neste as its first sustainable aviation fuel partner, and how you can help today at tomorrowsair.com.
About Tomorrow’s Air
An initiative of the Adventure Travel Trade Association, Tomorrow’s Air is an industry-first collective educating, inspiring and mobilizing people to travel climate conscious, reducing travel’s carbon dioxide emissions and cleaning up carbon dioxide from atmosphere. Every payment received supports climate conscious travel education and funds the scale up of cutting-edge technology for decarbonizing travel and/or carbon removal and permanent storage. The Adventure Travel Trade Association and the Tomorrow’s Air brand are proud to be a member of 1% for the Planet.
About Neste
Neste (NESTE, Nasdaq Helsinki) creates solutions for combating climate change and accelerating a shift to a circular economy. Neste refines waste, residues and innovative raw materials into renewable fuels and sustainable feedstock for plastics and other materials. Neste is the world’s leading producer of sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel and is developing chemical recycling to combat the plastic waste challenge. Neste aims to help customers reduce their greenhouse gas emissions with its renewable and circular solutions by at least 20 million tons annually by 2030.