How Much Will It Cost to Reach Sustainability Goals?
So you’ve decided to enact a sustainability program in your flight department. As with all initiatives, this one will add to your budget. And, as an aviation manager, you’ll need to figure out that added cost before presenting the program to your principal. How do you do that?
NBAA recognizes this question as one of the most important and frequently asked ones across its membership. This resource provides a way to answer that question. The downloadable, Macro-enabled Excel workbook calculates a ‘ballpark’ number, a forecasted approximation of additional resources a manager will need to secure to execute their department’s sustainability plan.
Download the Sustainability Cost Calculator
Macro-Enabled Excel Workbook, NBAA Members Only
Calculator’s Focus
Sustainability means so much more than reducing carbon in an aviation operation. Recycling, waste stream mitigation, sourcing, facility power sources, even human resource efficiencies can all combine to reduce carbon and increase a flight operator’s overall sustainability. When it comes to budget though, two other options cost far more than those other measures.
Carbon offsets and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) provide the largest carbon reductions in a flight operation and make up a far greater proportion of the costs of a program designed to reduce carbon emissions. As well, SAF and offsets are priced in larger markets so those costs tend to be more consistent across geographies; the costs remain relatively steady regardless of where a flight department is based. Conversely, the cost of other sustainable measures (recycling, electricity, etc) vary considerably depending on location. It’s difficult to create a geographically-neutral model to cover every cost involved in an overall sustainability program. Also, costs of fuel and offsets usually dwarf the other costs. As such, this calculator focuses exclusively on the added costs of incorporating SAF and carbon offsets into a department’s operations.
How to Use the Calculator
Before using this calculator, it’s good to understand the tool’s underlying framework. Many companies have an established goal for reducing CO2 emissions, which has two elements:
- Target year (e.g. 2030)
- Percent CO2 emissions reduction (e.g. 50% reduction)
This tool relies on these two metrics to calculate the costs associated with meeting that goal. It can’t work without them. If your owner or company does not have sustainability targets, NBAA suggests using the business aviation industry’s goal for net-zero carbon emissions (or 100% reduction) by 2050.
Besides the corporate goals, the calculator asks the user to enter four other categories of data:
- The flight department’s annual budget
- The amount of SAF the department would like to purchase annually, as a percent of total fuel purchased
- Estimated annual flight hours for each aircraft
- Average fuel burn for each of those aircraft (in pounds per hour)
Note: Many corporate firewalls prevent macro-enabled files from running if opened through a web browser. To prevent this, save the calculator to your hard drive, then open the file from your local drive, and “Enable Content” to allow the macros to run. The calculator will not work with disabled macros.
The macros used in the sustainability cost calculator are confined to the Excel workbook and do not read or modify other files on your computer.
Fine Tuning Results
The calculator allows users to adjust the following data points:
- Cost of a Carbon Offset ($/Metric Tonne)
- Cost difference between SAF vs Jet-A per Gallon
Retail prices for SAF vary across the US and in Europe depending on local and national government subsidies and the seller’s proximity to SAF production facilities. Retail prices for carbon offsets vary due to the costs of projects that they fund.
Unless other, specific values are known, market prices are recommended.
Cost of a Carbon Offset ($/Metric Tonne) | $10 |
Cost difference between SAF vs Jet-A per Gallon | $1.65 |
Prices as of October 2024
Results Explained
The sustainability cost calculator presents results in two categories: Average Costs and CO2 Emissions.
Below the numeric outputs, users will see a graphical representation of the costs for each year as well as the effective carbon emissions. The costs display in a stacked graph. The costs of carbon offsets (if any) sit atop the costs of SAF. Hover the cursor over the graph to see the specific numbers for any one year
Average Costs
- Incremental Annualized Cost to Achieve Goal
- This is the total cost added to the budget each year, on average. It is not the actual costs a user will realize during each year in the time period. The calculator sums all costs from each year and divides by the number of years in the selected time period. For example: A user selects 2040 as the target year. The calculator will sum all costs and divide by 15.
- SAF Cost/Year
- This is the cost added to purchase SAF each year, on average. It isn’t the actual cost for any one year. The calculator sums costs of SAF and divides by the number of years in the selected time period. For example: A user selects 2040 as the target year. The calculator will divide the sum by 15. Users can see specific SAF costs for each year by hovering the cursor over the lower part of the bars in the graph.
- Carbon Offset Cost/Year
- This is the cost added to purchase carbon offsets each year, on average. It isn’t the actual cost for any one year. The calculator sums the carbon offset costs and then divides by the number of years in the selected time period. For example: User selects 2040 as target year. Calculator will divide the sum by 15. Users can see specific carbon offset costs for each year by hovering the cursor over the top part of the bars in the graph. If there isn’t a second bar stacked, the model met the incremental carbon reduction with SAF and therefore did not purchase carbon offsets.
- Cost Per Flight Hour
- The average added cost per flight hour, on average. It isn’t the actual cost for any one year. The calculator sums all costs across the selected time period and divides it by the sum of all flight hours across that same time period. For example: A user selects 2040 as the target year. Two aircraft with 300 hours budgeted each year were entered. The Calculator will divide the sum of all costs by 9000 (600 x 15).
- Annual Budget Increase
- The percent increase in budget on average for each year in the time period. Actual increases for each year are not displayed. A user can assume lower percentages in the first part of the time period and higher later. This is the sum of all added costs divided by the budget multiplied by the number of years in the time period. For example: The sum of all added costs is $1,000,000. The annual budget is 5 million. The target year is 2030. The displayed increase will be: $1 million divided by $25 million or 2.5%.
- Baseline Annual CO2 Emissions
- The carbon dioxide emissions of the flight department without any carbon mitigation if the aircraft fly the hours budgeted.
- Averaged SAF Uplift Per Year
- The number of gallons of SAF purchased each year, on average.
- Ratio of Jet-A to SAF burned
- The ratio of the amount of Jet-A being burned in the user’s engines to the amount of SAF being burned. No jet engine can use pure (or neat) SAF. Neat SAF must be mixed with Jet-A to meet ASTM standards. The SAF currently available must be mixed at a ratio of 30% SAF to 70% Jet-A. Although it is blended, most standards label the mixture as “SAF”. Using the criteria set, the calculator determines how much SAF the user actually burns vs Jet-A. For example: If the user selects 100% reduction, using 100% SAF by 2025, the ratio will be 70/30 or 2.3 parts Jet-A to 1 part neat SAF. The calculator rounds, so it will display a ratio of “2:1.”
- Averaged Carbon Offsets Purchased Per Year
- The number of carbon offsets (1 offset per 1 metric tonne) purchased each year, on average.
- O2 Emissions Mitigated in Total
- The total CO2 eliminated (in metric tonnes) by the strategy selected over the time period. The Calculator sums each year’s CO2 reduction to arrive at the number.
CO2 Emissions
Calculator’s Methodology
Assumptions
- The calculator returns nominal numbers. It does not adjust for inflation.
- The hours flown for each aircraft is applied consistently across the defined period. This calculator doesn’t adjust for new aircraft or increased hours over time. Unless aircraft size changes though, it’s safe to assume newer aircraft will use less or different fuels, which will decrease carbon mitigation costs with each new aircraft. This lowers the average costs somewhat over time, but those calculations are beyond the capacity of this tool.
- The calculator assumes a linear decrease in targeted emissions. For example, if an aviation department wants to reduce its carbon output 50% in 5 years, the formula will decrease carbon output by 10% each year.
- The calculated annual budget increase does not represent the actual increased cost each year. Instead it is an average of all the added costs over the selected time frame. Actual costs will be lower earlier and higher later in the time period. To see the actual cost increase in any specific year in the graph, hover the cursor on the bar.
SAF Carbon Efficiency
Made from renewable feedstocks like tallow or cooking oil, SAF emits the same amount of CO2 when burned as traditional jet fuel. However, because it repurposes (or recycles) carbon already in the biosphere rather than adding new CO2 from fossil fuels, SAF reduces the overall carbon impact of aviation.
The efficiency of the SAF lifecycle – from feedstock harvesting to combustion – determines its carbon reduction capabilities. Current SAF made from tallow achieves a 74.8% reduction in lifecycle carbon emissions compared to petroleum-based jet fuel. However, since most turbine engines can’t run on 100% SAF, it must be mixed with conventional jet fuel. A typical 30/70 SAF blend (tallow-based) results in a 22.4% carbon reduction. In other words, an operator burning nothing but SAF can only reduce their carbon emissions by 22.4%.
The calculator uses the currently available tallow-based SAF in its calculations. As SAF production expands and more efficient blends become available, operators will see greater carbon reductions and lower costs. However, since the calculator uses today’s SAF data, the output is conservative – likely reflecting higher costs and smaller carbon savings than operators will experience 5, 10 or 15 years from now, as SAF technology advances and becomes more widely available.
Order of Operation
The model maximizes SAF use to reduce emissions before ‘buying’ carbon offsets to meet any year’s targeted reduction. In the initial years of the program, where the incremental carbon reductions are small enough, the model first uses SAF (up to the percentage selected) to reduce emissions. If the reductions required for that year exceed the capacity of SAF (See SAF Carbon Efficiency above), the model adds in carbon offsets to make up the difference. This is the most expensive carbon reduction strategy; therefore, the model returns the most conservative costs.