SATAVIA and AirCarbon Exchange (ACX) are delighted to announce an historic partnership, combining world-leading tech with pioneering commodities infrastructure to support trading of carbon credits generated by SATAVIA's unique contrail prevention technology.
Aircraft-generated condensation trails, or contrails, account for up to 60% of aviation's climate impact, almost double that of direct CO2 emissions from aircraft engines. Until recently, scientific and technical challenges made contrail prevention difficult or impossible. SATAVIA's best-in-class atmospheric modelling now enables operators to optimize flight plans for contrail prevention, subsequently converting achieved climate benefit into tradable carbon credits in a new market worth up to $9bn at current pricing.
The planned ACX trade will monetize contrail prevention activity carried out with SATAVIA's commercial partner Etihad Airways during the week leading up to Earth Day (18th-22nd April 2022), with SATAVIA collaborating with Etihad to optimize multiple flight plans for contrail prevention.
"We are delighted to work with SATAVIA on this world-first trade. Our ground-breaking blockchain architecture is a great fit with SATAVIA's disruptive tech-led innovation, and I look forward to supporting greener aviation with further trades in the months and years to come."
ACX Managing Director and Co-Founder, William Pazos
While most green aviation initiatives focus on hardware upgrades with year- or decade-long timeframes, SATAVIA's DECISIONX:NETZERO platform is a software solution with immediate applicability and near-term returns. By engaging in contrail prevention activity, eco-conscious operators like Etihad will now be able to generate commercial returns from climate-friendly operations, helping to support commercially sustainable green aviation.
"Credits are already available to offset aviation's direct CO2 emissions, but direct emissions only account for about a third of the sector's climate impact," said SATAVIA CEO, Adam Durant. "Generating tradable credits for indirect impacts arising from aircraft contrails is a big step forward in attempts to decarbonize aviation as a sector, creating commercial incentives for operators to enable smarter, greener flying."
Scientific research suggests that aircraft contrails generate up to 1.8 billion tonnes of CO2e each year (2019 flight numbers), equivalent to 2% of all human impact. This equates to a new carbon market worth $9bn at current nominal voluntary carbon pricing, forecast to rise tenfold by 2030.
"Low-hanging fruit of this magnitude doesn't come along very often," said William Pazos. "ACX is proud to support SATAVIA's world-leading green aviation activity, enabling necessary flight operations while simultaneously protecting the planet."
About AirCarbon Exchange
AirCarbon Exchange ("ACX") is a global exchange revolutionizing the voluntary carbon market. The Exchange's client base comprises corporate entities, financial traders, carbon project developers and other industry stakeholders. ACX provides its clients with an efficient and transparent trading platform which is easy to use, frictionless and with the lowest commission fees available on the market. Its underlying technology will allow the carbon market to scale efficiently to meet global ambitions of Net Zero. Launched in 2019, the Exchange is a hybrid platform with a traditional central order book architecture that will be familiar to all experienced traders. The Exchange also utilizes the speed and efficiency of the blockchain to achieve atomic T-0 trade execution, clearing and settlement. The Exchange's core matching engine can currently match trades in the order ~10k per second.
As of May 2021, ACX is the world's first carbon negative exchange, having offset its carbon emissions 12 months into the future (to May 2022) through the Onil Stoves Guatemala Uspantan project. ACX is committed to continuing to offset all of its emissions 12 months forward.
About SATAVIA
SATAVIA applies data analytics and atmospheric science to make aviation smarter and greener. SATAVIA's proprietary DECISIONX platform generates a digital twin of the atmosphere, enabling a range of high-impact use cases. SATAVIA's contrail prevention platform, DECISIONX:NETZERO, enables commercially sustainable green aviation by predicting and preventing aircraft contrails, responsible for up to 60% of aviation's climate impact.
Combining deep aerospace connections with an agile start-up culture, SATAVIA is able to scale quickly and adapt to new opportunities and partnerships. Rooted in scientific and technological acumen and working with leading players ranging from Microsoft to Etihad, SATAVIA embodies an entrepreneurial mindset with the ambition to transform the relationship between aviation and the environment.