Cathay Pacific together with Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and other airline leaders announced on 28 October the formation of the Aviation Climate Taskforce (ACT), a new nonprofit organisation founded to tackle the challenge of eliminating carbon emissions in aviation through innovation and collaboration.

“Dramatically reducing emissions is a critically important but also highly challenging task facing the aviation sector,” said Cathay’s chief Augustus Tang. “We recognise the importance of working with different sectors to develop the kinds of radically new technologies that will be required to decarbonise airline operations and enable us to meet our net-zero carbon emissions goal.

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Tang added that the taskforce will work to accelerate the development of breakthrough technologies and lead the way in achieving these decarbonisation targets. ACT will engage with experts, activists, policymakers, and thought leaders to help offer a clear way forward for the deployment of such technologies.

Cathay Pacific has pioneered efforts in decarbonisation technologies over the years. It became the first airline investor of sustainable aviation Fuel (SAF) developer Fulcrum BioEnergy in 2014, and recently committed to using SAF for 10 percent of its total fuel consumption by 2030.

This new cross-sector partnership is expected to contribute to the airline’s ongoing decarbonisation efforts and commitment to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Majority of its focus will be on on critical medium-term solutions, such as synthetic fuel, and additional focus on more near-term solutions, such as emerging bio-based SAF pathways, and long-term solutions, such as hydrogen technologies.