Air New Zealand withdraws from SBTi

Air New Zealand announced that it plans to remove its 2030 science-based carbon intensity reductions target and withdraw from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) immediately amid challenges to upgrade fleet, lack of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) supply and inadequate global policy and regulatory support.

The airline said that many of the key levers needed to meet these targets, including the availability of new aircraft, the affordability and availability of alternative jet fuels, and global and domestic regulatory and policy support, are outside the airline’s direct control and remain challenging.

Greg Foran, the airline’s CEO commented that it has become apparent that potential delays to Air New Zealand’s fleet renewal plan pose an additional risk to the target’s achievability.

“It is possible the airline may need to retain its existing fleet for longer than planned due to global manufacturing and supply chain issues that could potentially slow the introduction of newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft into the fleet,” he added further.

Air New Zealand recently received SAF delivery of 500,000 litres at Wellington from China’s SAF producer EcoCeres. Moreover, it also entered in a SAF offtake agreement of 9m litres with Finnish refiner Neste.