ZERO – the travel business and the environment

ZERO – the travel business and the environment

An excerpt from our monthly ZERO report. As this is a subscription report, the following items are not from the current edition.

Cleaner sea

Cruise company Ponant* is working on a ‘zero impact’ EF ship, which should combine several non fossil-fuel energy sources, including wind. Design work is due to be finished end-year, to be followed by a call for tenders for construction.

  The launch target is 2025.

  This year Ponant was awarded Green Marine Europe certification for the 3rd year. GME includes eight performance indicators, with award levels of 1-5. Ponant achieved average 4.4, and five for six of the eight indicators.

  These indicators include underwater noise, pollutant air emissions, CO2 emissions, management of residues and oily discharges, ship recycling.

*Notes:

Following primarily from Wikipedia, with amplification from ZERO:

-Ponant is a cruise ship operator founded in 1988; it has 11 ships. First owner CMA CGM, the shipping company, sold it in 2012 to Bridgepoint, an investment company, which sold it to Groupe Artemis in 2015. Artemis is a holding company founded by financier Francois Pinault concentrating on luxury and including Kering. All these companies are France-based except UK-based Bridgepoint.

-In 2019 Ponant bought Paul Gauguin Cruises.

-In 2021 Ponant launched Commandant Charcot, the first hybrid-electric LNG-powered cruiser for polar exploration – including ice-breaking capability.  It was built in Norway by Vard, a Fincantieri subsidiary.

Red goes green

Radisson Hotels has opened what it calls a sustainable-design hotel in Oslo under its Red brand. In fact, many of the EF elements come from its neighbourhood, not the hotel; see below.

  (Our) selected details:

-Located in Okern Portal, which includes a rooftop garden where herbs and vegetables are grown and used by the hotel – but the hotel does not operate this garden.

-Okern Portal also has its own energy wells that produce 90% of the heating for the development of which the Radisson is a part.

-The hotel has an ‘Excellent’ (2nd, out of six levels) rating from Breeam*.

-‘A’ class energy rating, meaning its energy level will not exceed 140 kwh/sqm. We cannot determine precisely the value of this claim.

-It uses rainfall catchers for its rooftop garden.

*Notes: UK-based Breeam (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) is an EV rating system for buildings. It measures sustainability – CO2 emissions, adaption to climate change, ecological value, biodiversity protection. Breeam is part of BRE, which is a centre of building science, owned by the BRE Trust charity.

CO2 emissions at existing hotels

HI* on decarbonising existing hotels:

-80% of the hotels forecast to be operating in 2050 are already open.

-The largest contributor to hotels’ CO2 emissions is also the 2nd-largest operating cost for hotels – energy.

-A refurbishment of a 20-year-old hotel with gas-fired heating and cooling systems was set for a 5-year payback from installing an electric system. But with recent price increases in electricity, payback is now 2.5 years. HI includes this factor in its report, although it could be counter to the report’s theme.

-Accor targets a 46% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030 and net zero by 2050*. 2050 is 30 years from now and we believe an unconvincing target, for public relations purposes only. 2030 would be a tough target, but surely 2035 is the furthest credible date?

-A Novotel in Lausanne, Switzerland installed a system that recovers lost heat from cold storage – meeting 70% of the hotel’s hot water needs in summer, 20% in winter.

-A Pullman in London has implemented a smart-building management control system that adapts the air conditioning and heating according to hotel occupancy and people numbers, monitored through movement detectors. Accor estimates HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) accounts for 27-50% of energy in a hotel.

-InterContinental targets a 46% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030.

-Accor and InterContinental have established ‘audit partnerships’ for hotel owners. What these partnerships are is not explained.

-In Northern Europe, Accor is supporting 20 hotel owners that represent 55% of the group’s CO2 emissions, where it can ‘quickly achieve’ 13% reduction in CO2 emissions. ‘Quickly’ is not quantified.

*Notes: HI is US-based Hospitality Insights, a publication owned by Questex Hospitality.

Greenwashing lawsuit against KLM

KLM has been accused of overselling in advertisements its sustainability, potentially misleading consumers.

  The lawsuit comes from advocacy groups Client Earth, the leader, with Fossielvrij, Reclame Fossielvrij. It targets KLM’s Fly Responsibly ads from 2019 that encouraged consumers to buy carbon credits to offset the footprints of their flights, to ‘pack lightly’, or even avoid flying.

  To us, CE’s case is weak. Carbon credits – used to, say, plant trees – may take carbon out of the air, but may not. CE argues that the campaign misleads passengers and undermines urgent climate action.

Cleaner air

From Washington Aviation Summary:

[] Groupe ADP (the group formed around the owner of the two main Paris airports) and Air Liquide formed a joint-venture to provide airports with engineering and services to supply hydrogen to aircraft – expected by 2035. They expect to have the first ready at the two Paris airports in 2023.

[] Airbus and Kansai Airports are studying use of hydrogen fuel at KA’s airports, in Kobe plus two in Osaka.

[] Spain’s Air Nostrum, owned by Iberia, has ordered 10 airships from UK-based Hybrid Air Vehicles from 2026, hoping to be the launch airline. Production of HAV’s 100-seat Airlander airship is due to start this year. The Airlander 10 is forecast to cut flight emissions by 90%.

[] Airports Council International and Aerospace Technology Institute have published a report on SAF at airports, noting requirements of infrastructure, distribution, storage.

[] Delta has received a one-time delivery of SAF at New York La Guardia airport via the Colonial Pipeline. The fuel originated 2500km away in Houston before being piped to New York. Other partners were Buckeye Partners and Neste.

[] Hawaiian Airlines and Par Pacific, a Hawaii-based supplier of fuel products, plan a study on supplying SAF. The study will: evaluate converting two of PP’s processing units; support production of locally grown, oil-yielding crops; import sustainable feedstocks to produce SAF. Aviation fuel represents 40% of Hawaii’s fuel demand.

[] Singapore’s civil aviation authority, Singapore Airlines, and Singapore’s state investment company Temasek were due last month to launch the sale of 1000 SAF credits generated from the 1000 tonnes of SAF blended, delivered and uplifted from Singapore’s airport.

  Every credit will help to reduce 2.5 tonnes of CO2 emissions. The credits will be registered with the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials.

[] Southwest is investing in Saffire Renewables, owned by D3max, as part of a US government-backed project for SAF. The aim is to convert corn into ethanol that would be converted into SAF.

[] Singapore’s state investment company Temasek will give US$4bn (S$5bn) to launch Gen Zero, an investment platform for decarbonisation.

#environment

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