Clean-Air Turbulence

Sustainability in private aviation is on the horizon, but the path to get there is far from straightforward.

- Jaclyn Trop

FROM BIOFUELS TO battery-powered aircraft, the aviation industry is searching for ways to shrink its carbon footprint. At the same time, the opposition to private jets has reached a new level of visibility as environmental protesters lobby for stricter regulations and, in some cases, outright bans. “We have a big target on our backs,” says Erik Lindbergh, chairman of the Lindbergh Foundation and grandson of Charles Lindbergh, the first aviator to fly non-stop across the Atlantic, in 1927. “We need to get in front of the issue if we’re going to survive.”

Detractors note that private jets account for as much as 14 times more carbon emissions per passenger than a commercial airliner, but those numbers skew other data; with a reasonable number of travellers, a business jet’s emissions could be comparable to a single person driving a Ford F-150 pickup truck. Aircraft in general account for two per cent of global emissions, while private aviation accounts for just two per cent of that number.

Yet the negative perception has the industry frantically waving the sustainability flag. Last year, a coalition of business-aviation leaders made a commitment to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. And, as part of an earlier 2009 agreement, private aviation kept its promise to improve fuel efficiency from 2010 to 2020 by two per cent each year.