Alaska Airlines is taking the next step in advancing sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) as part of Alaska’s Ever Green programme for improvements in environmental sustainability.
Alaska has launched a programme to engage its corporate customers in the decarbonisation journey through purchase of SAF credits and continued efforts to expand education and awareness about opportunities to improve the sustainability of business travel including through use of SAF. The programme builds on a first-in-the-US programme launched with Microsoft in 2020 to reduce corporate business travel emissions through corporate partnerships.
“Launching this programme is another step toward our net zero goal and an important step to bringing SAF to scale,” said Diana Birkett Rakow, Senior Vice President, Public Affairs and Sustainability, Alaska Airlines. “While SAF is imperative to aviation’s decarbonisation journey, there are multiple barriers we must overcome to make SAF commercially-viable at scale. We believe these barriers are best addressed when we work together within the aviation community and across sectors. Our goals with this program are to support our customers’ sustainability goals by providing SAF credits, to continue increasing awareness of the barriers and opportunities to advancing SAF, and to leverage the knowledge of this growing community to accelerate our collective progress.”
The programme launches with participation from Microsoft, Boeing and Washington State University (WSU). Microsoft has also committed to reducing the scope 3 emissions of their business travel with Alaska. Participants will further deepen the experience with pilot book and claim systems and build upon those efforts to advance awareness and education on sustainable travel topics among all corporate customers.
“We are proud to build on our long-standing partnership with Alaska, along with other corporate and academic leaders like Microsoft and WSU, to help catalyse the scaling of sustainable aviation fuel,” said Sheila Remes, Vice President of Environmental Sustainability, Boeing. “We will need 700-1,000 times increase in the amount of SAF if we are to meet the industry’s commitment to net zero by 2050 and partnerships and new ideas like these are critical to meeting that goal.”
Alaska’s programme includes Boeing and WSU as aviation and academic value chain partners to share knowledge and advancements in sustainable business travel with corporate participants. Together, participants will collaborate to advance sustainability in business travel, increase education and awareness, and identify and act on opportunities for collective action.
“WSU has long been a national leader in climate and sustainability research, including in the development and adoption of SAF,” said Kirk Schulz, President of WSU. “We look forward to supporting this coalition of forward-looking companies committed to decarbonising air travel.”
Deloitte has become the latest company to join Alaska’s new corporate SAF programme. “Deloitte is proud to work with Alaska Airlines to help increase the adoption of sustainable aviation fuel,” said Kwasi Mitchell, Chief Purpose Officer at Deloitte. “Reducing aviation emissions is integral to protecting our climate and creating a more sustainable future.”
