Gulfstream’s Evans: It’s Time to ‘Take Sustainability Seriously’

For Scott Evans, director of demonstration, airborne customer support and corporate flight operations at Gulfstream Aerospace, focusing on sustainability is nothing new.

“We’ve accomplished a tremendous amount in the sustainability space,” Evans said. “This is especially true since 2011, when a Gulfstream G450 became the first business jet to complete a transatlantic flight using SAF.”

In 2014, for example, the company began offering its G500 and G600 aircraft. Despite being bigger and faster than the previous generation of aircraft, these clean-sheet designs incorporate advanced avionics; state-of-the-art wings, winglets and fuselages; and higher-performing, lower-emission engines – and are up to 33% more efficient as a result. The Gulfstream approach to sustainability through aircraft efficiency continued in 2019 with the introduction of the G700, and most recently in 2021 with the announcement of the G800 and G400.

But while he applauds aircraft innovations like these, when it comes to sustainability Evans is most passionate in his advocacy for increasing the availability and use of SAF.

“SAF is the most important lever we have to decarbonize aviation in the near- to mid-term,” Evans explained. “The biggest opportunity we have to drive sustainability today is to get enough operators using SAF that fuel manufacturers start making SAF available across the country and around the world.”

In no small part thanks to the work by Evans and the broader Gulfstream team, the company has been widely recognized for its approach to sustainability. For instance, in 2019 and again in 2022, it received the Business Intelligence Group’s Sustainability Leadership Award. And in 2023, the company became the first OEM to earn all four accreditations offered by NBAA’s Sustainable Flight Department Accreditation Program, in Flight, Operations, Ground Support and Infrastructure.

Evans advises operators who are new to thinking about decarbonization to “just get started” and to keep asking their FBOs about making SAF available.

“Each of us in the business aviation industry needs to become a sustainability advocate in order to set the path we’re on as a whole,” he concluded. “Because I guarantee that, if we fail to take sustainability seriously enough, our path is going to be defined for us by regulators in a way that may not be what the industry wants or needs.”