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The pandemic shut down most business travel and while it is starting to rebound, many companies are rethinking their corporate travel policies in response to increasing awareness of the need to act on climate goals, Amelia DeLuca, Delta’s Vice President of Sustainability, said in an interview.

“The ask here, essentially, to our business travel community is to understand that there's a solution available now. There is no reason to stop flying,” DeLuca said in an interview with Joel Makower, Editor of Greenbiz.com. “If you're looking to hit your own internal emission-reductions targets, sustainable aviation fuel is there for you. Get in the game now with us because we also want our corporations to be with us to help figure out how we engage on this as we move forward.”

Delta has made sustainability a key part of its business strategy. The Atlanta, Georgia-based carrier committed in 2012 to capping its emissions at that year’s level, then pledged in 2020 to be carbon neutral. SAF is a key part of that strategy, DeLuca said, noting that Delta will begin taking delivery of more than 303 million litres (80 million gallons) of SAF in 2024, compared to 11 million litres (3 million gallons) a year now.

Investors are putting increased pressure on airlines and other corporations to take meaningful steps towards net-zero emissions, DeLuca said, noting that the aviation industry is keen to partner with other stakeholders since a reduction in an airline’s Scope 1 emissions – meaning those stemming directly from its core business – amount to reductions in the Scope 3 emissions that cover those caused by travel for other companies.

“It's a win-win situation,” DeLuca said.

DeLuca highlighted a partnership Delta struck with Deloitte in February 2021 under which the global consulting firm became one of the first corporate customers to buy SAF through Delta to help offset its business-travel emissions. Such partnerships will help narrow the price premium over conventional jet fuel, DeLuca said.

“Partnerships involve us looking across our supply chain and saying, okay, we want to sit with you and walk this journey together. We want to be your thought partner. We want to be your investor in some instances. We want to raise the ambition together. Because if we get out of sync, that's when I think we're going to see investors and other parts of our stakeholder group start to lose confidence in us as an industry,” DeLuca said.

“In the journey forward, sustainable aviation fuel is the most critical thing that we have to achieve our joint efforts between an airline and that corporation who's trying to reduce their business travel emissions,” she said. 

“But it's price-prohibitive not only for us as a company but for many customers who would like to purchase it,” she said. “Government policy is critical at this point.”