Google has joined American Express Global Business Travel’s sustainable aviation fuel programme, Avelia, the TMC announced at the GBTA Convention in Dallas today (13 August).
“Google joining is significant for three reasons,” said Amex GBT VP of global sustainability Nora Lovell Marchant. “It underscores the importance that the customer always comes first. Second, it’s the one-year anniversary of Avelia, the first blockchain-powered solution for SAF. Finally, it underscores the transformative power of technology when it comes to energy transition.”
Amex GBT partnered with Shell Aviation and Accenture, with the support of the Energy Web Foundation to create the book-and-claim platform last year. Soon after its launch, Aon became the first Amex GBT client to join the programme. More recently, Bank of America signed up to the initiative in June this year.
“The Avelia model puts customers in control,” said Lovell Marchant. “Corporations can purchase SAF and contract for SAF. Whatever the customer puts in the contract that is what the customer gets: the type of fuel they want, the feedstocks or exclusions of feedstocks from that fuel, the carbon intensity from that fuel and the data from that fuel… this is how corporations are now doing business. This is how they are embedding decarbonisation right into their travel programmes.”
She added the platform also helps avoid double counting by ensuring the environmental attributes associated with SAF are only allocated to the airline and to the corporation that invests in SAF.
Source: Business Travel News Europe