Aircastle, Air New Zealand, Embraer, Google, HIS, Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking, Technip Energies, and Safran Corporate Ventures are among the companies that have recently joined United Airlines' sustainable flight fund. This brings the total number of corporate partners in the United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund to 22. The fund currently stands at over $200 million.
The Sustainable Flight Fund is a collaborative effort comprising more than $450,000 in contributions from customers and over $200 million in investments from nearly two dozen corporate partners. These investments are directed towards the creation and utilization of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which is presented by United Airlines Ventures as an alternative to conventional jet fuel. According to the United Airlines Ventures website, SAF is produced from used cooking oil and agricultural waste and emits fewer greenhouse gases throughout its lifecycle. The website also reveals that United Airlines Ventures has committed to future production of billions of gallons of SAF.
Andrew Chang, managing director of United Airlines Ventures, emphasized the importance of SAF in a Feb. 14 press release announcing the fund’s newest partners. He said: "SAF is the best tool we have to decarbonize airplanes, but we don't have enough of it. To create the fuel supply we need for our fleet, United recognized that we would have to help build a brand-new industry from scratch – like wind and solar in previous decades. As part of our effort to build a new sustainable aviation ecosystem, we recruited a group of partners with the industry expertise to support our startups with both financial and strategic capital, to help them navigate the entire process from conception to commercialization."
Natixis CIB is one such partner that recently joined the United Airlines Ventures project. Yevgeniya Levitin, Managing Director and Head of Aviation Americas at Natixis CIB expressed her company's commitment in their press release on this topic: "We are proud to be a part of this endeavor. SAF has emerged as the most effective large-scale solution for decarbonizing aviation industry, and the demand for it, fueled by net zero objectives and strong traffic growth, outstrips supply by a huge factor. Natixis CIB is fully aligned with United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund's approach to addressing the bottlenecks to scaling up production and advancing SAF enabling technologies."