Google has joined American Express Global Business
Travel's sustainable aviation fuel programme, Avelia, the TMC announced at the GBTA Convention
in Dallas today (13 August).
"Google joining is significant for three reasons,"
said Amex GBT VP of global sustainability Nora Lovell Marchant. "It
underscores the importance that the customer always comes first. Second, it's the
one-year
anniversary of Avelia, the first blockchain-powered solution for SAF.
Finally, it underscores the transformative power of technology when it comes to
energy transition."
Amex GBT partnered with Shell Aviation and Accenture, with
the support of the Energy Web Foundation to create the book-and-claim platform
last year. Soon after its launch, Aon became the first Amex GBT client to join the programme. More recently, Bank of America signed up to the initiative in June this year.
"The Avelia model puts customers in control,"
said Lovell Marchant. "Corporations can purchase SAF and contract for SAF.
Whatever the customer puts in the contract that is what the customer gets: the type
of fuel they want, the feedstocks or exclusions of feedstocks from that fuel,
the carbon intensity from that fuel and the data from that fuel… this is how
corporations are now doing business. This is how they are embedding
decarbonisation right into their travel programmes."
She added the platform also helps avoid
double counting by ensuring the environmental attributes associated with SAF
are only allocated to the airline and to the corporation that invests in SAF.