Air New Zealand has unveiled new climate action "guidance", after pulling the plug on its climate targets last year. Photo: Supplied/ Air NZ
Air New Zealand says getting from 1.6 per cent sustainable aviation fuel this year to 10 per cent by 2030 is "really going to keep us on our toes."
Chief sustainability and corporate affairs officer Kiri Hannifin defended the move from a science-based climate target for cutting emissions to issuing "guidance" on how climate efforts were tracking.
"We had to pull out of our science-based target last year because we couldn't achieve it and when you can't achieve something you have to be honest about that," Hannifin told Morning Report.
"But our view is you can't be an airline and cause the harm that you do without having something in the market that talks about how you're going to decarbonise, and so that's why we replaced it, but we've replaced it with something that is ambitious, it is achievable but it is really going to stretch us."
"The reason we've done it not as a static target but as guidance is because we want to be radically transparent every with everybody year about how we are tracking."
Air New Zealand is describing its new, less ambitious climate action forecast for 2030 as "guidance" on how it expects to perform, rather than a target.
The airline made global headlines last year when it pulled the plug on its climate targets, saying the new aircraft and alternative jet fuels it needed to reach them were too hard to get and too expensive.
In July 2024 the national carrier removed its 2030 carbon intensity reduction target and withdrew from the global Science Based Targets initiative, which is considered the gold standard for corporate goal setting to combat climate change.
Carbon intensity is a measure of greenhouse gas emissions relative to a certain activity. In Air New Zealand's case, the target aimed for a 29 per cent reduction by 2030 in emissions produced, relative to goods and people transported.
That abandoned target has been replaced with a guidance statement on how the airline's effort to reduce planet-heating emissions are shaping up, the first in an annual series.
The statement said that as of 1 May 2025, Air New Zealand expects to reduce its "well-to-wake" net greenhouse gas emissions from jet fuel by 20 to 25 per cent by 2030, compared with a 2019 baseline.
Well-to-wake emissions included jet fuel production, distribution and combustion in flight, which the airline said added up to 92 per cent of its annual climate impact of 4.3 million tonnes of greenhouse gases.
Hannifin said that under the guidance emissions would fall to between 3.5 to 3.7 million tonnes in 2030 "and that's in a period of growth."
For scale, New Zealand's total greenhouse gas emissions are around 76 million tonnes a year.
However, most of Air NZ's emissions do not count towards that national tally because they happen overseas.
Overseas flights do not count towards any country's official emissions, because of a loophole in international climate reporting which excludes international shipping and aviation.
Reliant on "affordable" alternative jet fuels
The airline said the latest guidance relies on Air New Zealand meeting its target to use 10 per cent sustainable aviation fuel in 2030, receiving deliveries of new aircraft on time and other factors.
Sustainable jet fuel or SAF comes from alternative sources to fossil fuels such as used cooking oil, wood and plants and - it is hoped - will one day come from synthetic processes, which would have a lower environmental impact.
The airline said its 10 per cent goal is contingent on being able to access "appropriate volumes of SAF at reasonable prices", which it said will rely on outside developments.
However climate campaigners have previously criticised Air NZ and other airlines for being unwilling to spend what is needed to rapidly grow the supply of cleaner fuels.
British environmentalist Sir Jonathon Porritt was head of the airline's external sustainability panel when it adopted its science-based 2030 target but departed before the target was dropped.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/top/530685/air-nz-says-by-2030-nearly-every-overseas-port-it-flies-to-will-require-it-to-carry-sustainable-fuel-but-not-nz
He previously told RNZ that there was huge demand for sustainable fuel from all major airlines as they try to cut their emissions, and being located in New Zealand made it harder to get an affordable supply.
Porritt said, to Air New Zealand's credit, it refused to source biofuel from potentially destructive sources such as palm oil.
But there was only so much alternative feedstock - like used cooking oil - to go around. Meanwhile, all airlines were determined to grow while also cutting their climate impacts.
"Pretty much everybody is still geared to the desirability and inevitability of more bums on more seats in the air, in every single market around the world.
Sir Jonathon said the solution was to throw support behind synthetic fuel, which does not compete with food or forests for land.
But because it cost more governments were unlikely to make its use mandatory, he said.
Air NZ said its emissions guidance aimed to provide "a regular and transparent assessment of Air New Zealand's progress towards its 2050 net-zero carbon emissions target" and it plans to issue updates annually in August.
Hannifin said the guidance could improve in future.
"We hope there may be opportunities to move faster as new technologies and the SAF industry grows, so our 2030 emissions guidance could be updated to reflect any upside as well," she said.
Air New Zealand's expected reduction is a net total, meaning it can include buying carbon offsets such as those from tree planting projects, as well as actual emissions reductions. However the guidance said that only a small volume of "high quality" offsets will be used, as well an unspecified extra number of credits the airline has to buy as a member of CORSIA.
CORSIA is a UN-backed scheme where airlines support initiatives such as solar grid installations and reforestation projects to offset some of their climate impact.
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