In this article the Manchester Airport Group (MAG) discusses the UK's aviation sector's strides toward decarbonisation through fuel-efficient aircraft, modernised airspace, and hydrogen technology.

Over the last decade, the UK aviation sector has taken important steps to decarbonise – purchasing more fuel-efficient aircraft, modernising airspace and developing hydrogen-propelled aircraft. It also has a clear plan to decarbonise by 2050, with a number of important milestones along the way. For example, at the MAG, we have a commitment to ensure all our airports are themselves net zero by 2038.

Another technology poised to play a major role in curbing the sector’s emissions is Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). The UK has the opportunity to establish a thriving domestic SAF industry – bringing benefits such as the creation of tens of thousands of green jobs across the country, and insulation from volatile international energy markets.

If we don’t produce SAF here, we will have to import it – that will mean the jobs associated with building new plants on our shores will be created overseas, while costs will also increase, spelling bad news for consumers.

The most widely available feedstock for producing SAF in the UK is non-recyclable household waste -  black bin bag waste. Each year, 8.5 million tonnes of household waste are burned to make electricity in the UK, and a further 7.3 million tonnes are burned with no energy recovery at all. 

What if this same waste was used to produce SAF?  Aircraft powered by SAF made from household waste could emit 89% less carbon than when they use conventional aviation fuel. 

This carbon saving should not be understated.  Another way of looking at it is that if all waste in the UK that is currently incinerated was used to make SAF instead, this would save the equivalent amount of carbon of at least 46 million people flying from London to Madrid every year.

As a result, the reduction in carbon emissions by using waste to make SAF is at least five times greater than when it is used to make electricity – because nearly half of all UK electricity already comes from renewable sources.  As more renewables come online over the next decade, the emissions savings of generating electricity from waste will continue to get smaller and smaller.

So, why aren’t we getting on with developing waste based SAF?

Part of the answer lies with the Government’s waste policy – specifically its waste hierarchy.  This provides guidance to waste authorities, including local councils, on  how to dispose of it. Currently, SAF is treated as equal in the hierarchy to other forms of energy recovery, such as energy-from-waste technologies, despite the environmental advantages which SAF offers above and beyond energy-from-waste.

If a council has an existing contract where its waste is disposed of via an energy-from-waste plant, and had not sent its waste to become SAF before, would they start now?  The short answer is they likely wouldn’t.  That is unless they were pioneering and supported the decarbonisation of aviation, or the guidance they received from government – the waste hierarchy – told them to.  The Government therefore needs to amend its waste hierarchy to prioritise SAF as a form of energy recovery over energy-from-waste.   

The government has made welcome steps to creating a domestic SAF industry, such as introducing a SAF Mandate and designing a revenue certainty scheme to deliver price stability for SAF, and this should be applauded. But unless waste policy unlocks access to the waste feedstock needed to produce SAF, a domestic SAF industry won’t be taking off at all.