This Earth Day Adam Morton, Head of Technology – Sustainability and Strategy explores how the power of the aerospace community can unlock the sector’s sustainability commitments.
Since its inception in 1970, Earth Day has set out to hold sectors accountable for their environmental impact and called for ‘bold, creative, and innovative solutions’. The 2026 theme of Our Power, Our Planet™ reflects our collective responsibility and ability to do just that.
The ATI’s FlyZero project, which concluded in March 2022, provides a great example of the collective power of a united aerospace engineering community. With funding from the Department for Business and Trade, FlyZero began in early 2021 as an intensive research project investigating zero-carbon emission commercial flight. This independent study brought together experts from across the UK to assess potential zero-carbon emission aircraft concepts. The project found that hydrogen holds the potential to enable extended zero-carbon commercial flight. It also identified the key technology bricks, along with enabling technologies, and operational and infrastructure requirements.
This helped inform the 2022 UK technology strategy Destination Zero, developed with extensive industry input and featuring ultra-efficient, zero-carbon, and cross-cutting enabling technology roadmaps. This strategy also highlighted the intrinsic UK growth opportunity of delivering the technological advancements needed to make aviation more sustainable. Over the past four years, Destination Zero has provided a strategic direction for the UK aerospace community, aimed at supporting Net Zero ambitions and maximising growth including through ATI Programme investment decisions.
The ATI has also advanced sustainable aviation by launching a follow-on Non-CO2 Emissions Technologies Roadmap and complementary funding programme, aiming to grow understanding and accelerate technology development in this area. This represented a world-first, consolidating industry views on the complex atmospheric science around aviation’s wider climate impact. It also sets out priority areas for technology to reduce current uncertainty on contrails, oxides of nitrogen (NOx), soot and particulates. In the following two years, the ATI Programme has awarded funding to four pioneering non-CO2 projects across Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF), contrail modelling, data collection and on-aircraft sensor technologies.
Contrail monitoring and avoidance is quickly becoming a key focus of research into addressing Non-CO2 emissions. There is growing evidence that airlines can use flight path variation to avoid generating persistent warming contrails. It is possible that this mitigation can be achieved with a very modest fuel burn and carbon dioxide emissions penalty. The testing of such ideas is not entirely new with numerous contrail avoidance trials undertaken in the last decade. Such work, with inputs from air navigation service providers (ANSPs), airlines, academia, leading research institutes and technology companies, has already partly demonstrated the concept. The ATI is now actively exploring how large-scale contrail avoidance trials over oceanic and continental airspace, can help progress solutions in this area. These would aim to build confidence that air navigation service providers (ANSPs) could accommodate contrail avoidance being routinely integrated into flight planning. Additional benefits might include better scientific understanding, a robust estimate of possible net climate benefits and wider stakeholder engagement.
Achieving Net Zero in aviation demands collaborative action to keep communities and economies connected while addressing flight’s environmental impact. Earth Day 2026 is an opportunity to reflect on the ATI’s role as part of the global aerospace and aviation community to deliver bold and innovative solutions securing the environmental and economic benefits.
Next month, the ATI will publish the latest UK aerospace technology strategy with the growth opportunity of more sustainable aircraft technologies at its core. Register on Eventbrite now to join our webinar from 11:00 – 12:30 on Tuesday 19th May.
