United Airlines Ventures has launched a sustainable
flight fund, an investment vehicle designed to support start-ups
focused on decarbonizing air travel by accelerating the research,
production and technologies associated with sustainable aviation
fuel (SAF).
The fund starts with more than $100 million in
investments from United and its inaugural partners: Air Canada,
Boeing, GE Aerospace, JPMorgan Chase and Honeywell.
Through the
fund, those and potentially additional corporate participants will
invest alongside United in SAF technology and production start-ups
identified by United.
In the past two years alone, United Airlines
Ventures has invested in start-ups such as Cemvita, Dimensional
Energy and NEXT Renewable Fuels.
The airline is also getting customers involved, as anyone who
buys a ticket on the United website or app now has the option to
contribute to supplement United’s investment in the fund. To
celebrate the launch, the
first 10,000 people who choose to contribute will each receive 500
MileagePlus Miles as a thank you.
“Solving climate change is doable but it requires
hard work and real leadership,” said United CEO Scott Kirby. “This
fund is unique. It’s not about offsets or things that are just
greenwashing. Instead, we’re creating a system that drives
investment to build a new industry around sustainable aviation
fuel, essentially from scratch. That’s the only way we can
actually decarbonize aviation.”
SAF is an alternative to conventional jet fuel
that, on a lifecycle basis, reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
associated with air travel compared to conventional jet fuel
alone.
SAF, which currently must be blended with conventional jet
fuel to meet regulatory requirements for use within the aircraft,
is being made from used cooking oil and agricultural waste, and,
in the future, could be made from other feedstocks including
household trash or forest waste.
To date, United has invested in
the future production of over three billion gallons of SAF – the
most of any airline in the world.
The UAV Sustainable Flight Fund is open to
investment by corporations across industries and the fund will
prioritize investment in new technology, advanced fuel sources and
proven producers, all in an effort to scale the supply of SAF.
Partners of the fund also have the potential to gain preferential
access to environmental attributes associated with United’s supply
of SAF.
United has already made investments in or signed
purchase agreements with companies using a variety of ingredients
and technologies to produce SAF, including feedstocks like
ethanol, animal byproducts, forestry and crop waste, and municipal
waste, as well as early-stage, promising technologies like
synthetic biology and power to liquids.
United Airlines Ventures
will move selected existing SAF investments to establish the UAV
Sustainable Flight Fund portfolio.
United is also educating consumers about their air
travel carbon footprint and giving them the option to take action.
On United’s website and app,
the airline now shows customers an
estimate of each flight’s carbon footprint in their search. Green
shading will indicate a lower-carbon option on a per economy seat
passenger basis in a customer’s chosen itinerary.
A flight’s
carbon footprint is measured in kg CO2e (kilograms of carbon
dioxide equivalent) and United’s estimates, which could differ
from actual flight emissions, are based on aircraft type, flying
time, seat capacity and the number of people and cargo on a given
flight.
Travellers who book through United for
travel within or from the U.S. will now see an option to
contribute to supplement United’s investment in the UAV
Sustainable Flight Fund before check-out. Customers have the
choice to contribute $1, $3.50 or $7.
The default option for customer contributions is
set at $3.50 to illustrate the potential impact of customer action
at scale: if the 152 million people who flew on United in 2022
each contributed just $3.50 to the UAV Sustainable Flight Fund,
that would be enough to design and build a SAF refinery capable of
producing as much as 40 million gallons of alternative fuel
annually.
United’s aim is to be 100% green by reducing its
GHG emissions 100% by 2050, without relying on traditional carbon
offsets.
