Dr Sinéad Roden
Associate Professor, Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin
Cillian Walsh
Research Assistant, Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin
The global aviation industry must undergo a change of mindset and culture to meet ambitious net zero targets by 2050, according to supply chain experts.
Dr Sinéad Roden underlines the importance of competitors working to become collaborators amid a new era of cooperation in the drive for aviation decarbonisation.
Aviation decarbonisation
Dr Roden, Associate Professor in Logistics and Supply Chain Management at Trinity Business School, says: “From a supply chain perspective, we are used to dealing with trade-offs — be it between efficiency or resilience, globalisation versus localisation or cost control versus innovation.”
Within aviation decarbonisation, there is a need to reexamine that trade-off perspective and to “reconcile how can we be both innovative and control costs,” says Dr Roden. Decarbonisation innovation in an industry that is a heavy producer of CO2 requires investment, which will increase short-term costs; but taking the longer-term perspective should pay off economically and environmentally. The aviation industry must also shift from a siloed management approach to a more cooperative one.
Aviation decarbonisation is complex for an island nation like Ireland where industry is vital economically but taxing environmentally.
Unique position
Aviation decarbonisation is complex for an island nation like Ireland where industry is vital economically but taxing environmentally. Cillian Walsh, Research Assistant at Trinity Business School, working on the supply chain element of a National Challenge Fund project on aviation decarbonisation, says Ireland is reliant on aviation.
With natural resources, offshore wind capability and capacity to produce SAF (sustainable aviation fuels) — which remain costly but sit at the core of aviation decarbonisation along with improved routing efficiencies — it holds a unique position within the net zero challenge.
Sustainable solutions
A further challenge is Ireland’s struggle to meet the EU’s mobility targets, which envision that 90% of travellers within Europe will be able to travel door-to-door anywhere in the continent within four hours, without air travel.
Acknowledging limited ‘joined-up thinking’ in the aviation sector, Walsh explains that the project is looking at ways of fostering stakeholder collaboration to prepare Ireland for the implementation of sustainable aviation solutions.
Project funded under the National Challenge Fund, part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), funded by the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility and administered by Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland.
