JetBlue Ventures held its first Sustainable Travel Summit in San Francisco on September 28, 2022. It was a fantastic event, with speakers and participants from across the ecosystem of startups, investors, corporates, and government.
We had a rich discussion of the issues, and it was fascinating to see how the challenge of sustainability is creating a period of change and uncertainty the likes of which the travel and aviation industry hasn’t seen in 100 years. After many decades where industry has been dominated by tube-and-wing airframes burning kerosene-based jet fuel in gas turbine engines, people are increasingly talking about new fuels, new propulsion technologies like fuel cells and electric motors, new aircraft types, new business models, and new priorities.
We started off the morning talking about the tension between the creativity and flexibility needed for research and development on one side, and the structure that’s needed for operational efficiency and safety on the other. Everybody has an interest in safety, and incidents like the 2010 cargo flight crash caused by a fire in a shipment of batteries can be a major setback for the entire industry. With this in mind, one speaker described the most likely path forward as a “revolution by evolution,” where innovations that build on the existing foundation accumulate to completely change the industry over time. This may be disappointing to those who believe radical changes must be made quickly for the industry to become sustainable, but as the American futurist Roy Amara said in 2006, “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”
While much of the discussion naturally focused on batteries, hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), and other cool hardware, we also talked about the need for software and information to help the travel industry understand its carbon footprint — because you can’t manage what you don’t measure! Better information will help us find new operational efficiencies and connect companies and people in new ways, so that together we can reach our sustainability goals.
Another key point was that the best sustainability innovations make things better, not just cleaner. For example, Tesla’s electric vehicles leverage advances in battery technology to provide electric vehicles (EV) with greater range than earlier EVs from established automakers, but they succeeded in part because they were also attractive, low-maintenance, had lots of innovative technology features, and were more fun to drive.
The transition to sustainability also has deep organizational implications. Speakers at the event discussed the ways in which operational challenges like sustainability or COVID-19 can open peoples’ minds to new ways of doing business, leading to breakthroughs and creating new opportunities for diversity and inclusion. We heard about corporations leading by example, leveraging their own power as buyers and trendsetters to drive change throughout their industries.
Finally, we had a great discussion about the number and variety of government authorities that play a role in the transition to a sustainable future, at the national, state and even local level. Whether it’s regulators like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), research and development funders like the Department of Energy, state public utility commissioners, transit agencies and port authorities that own much of the travel infrastructure, tax collectors, and even trade policy and import tariffs, the sustainability transition is influenced by government agencies at every level.
Perhaps my favorite takeaway from the event was that sustainability (like safety) is everybody’s job, not something to be siloed into a special department where it can be walled off from the “real” business. Innovators from across the value chain are being drawn into the sustainability effort — they find a place to start and build from there. Travelers are also paying more attention to sustainability; they want a choice and the opportunity to make a difference, even though they are still uncertain that they want to pay more.
JetBlue Ventures is grateful for all of the speakers, moderators, and event staff who put on such a great event, and to the diverse and deeply engaged audience who joined us there.
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