AVIATAR, Lufthansa Technik’s digital operations suite, now operates carbon-neutral. The Digital Fleet Services business segment has had this certified by standardized reporting and offsetting via the certified compensation platform SQUAKE. AVIATAR is thus a pioneer among digital tech ops platforms in the aviation industry as well as among Lufthansa Technik’s business segments.
At AVIATAR, the achievement of carbon neutrality is based on two pillars. On the one hand, the emissions caused by the technical cloud and office infrastructure as well as by the employees were already massively reduced in the past years. While 152 metric tons of CO2 equivalents were still emitted in 2019, this figure was almost halved in 2021, to just 77 metric tons. This corresponds to the average annual footprint of just seven people. The halving of emissions is all the more remarkable given the significant increase in the number of customers over the same period and a tripling of the number of aircraft serviced on the AVIATAR platform. AVIATAR will continue to vigorously pursue the goal of reducing its real emissions.
On the other hand, AVIATAR’s carbon footprint is already neutral today, thanks to full financial compensation of the remaining emissions through a broad portfolio of social and environmental projects. These include, for example, the installation of wind turbines in India, reforestation of rainforest in Nicaragua, support for sustainable food production in Burundi, and the procurement of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
The compensation of emissions is carried out in close cooperation with SQUAKE. The IT startup, a spin-off from the Lufthansa Group’s Innovation Hub, automates the emissions accounting and enables AVIATAR to operate the calculated compensation exclusively via certified projects. This ensures that the emissions generated are offset in a complete, transparent and verifiable manner. In addition to the annual compensation of future emissions from now on, AVIATAR has decided to also compensate its emissions from the past three years (319 tons of CO2 equivalent) via SQUAKE.
“Of course, we are proud to be the pioneer among digital tech ops platforms in launching a carbon-neutral product,” said Philip Mende, Vice President Digital Fleet Services at Lufthansa Technik.
“But this is just the start for us. On the one hand, we will continue to drive forward the real reduction of emissions in our production in a targeted manner and firmly anchor the topic of sustainability in our product development. On the other hand, we intend to conduct further studies in the near future in order to precisely quantify the emission savings that AVIATAR enables for our customers, for example by avoiding technical diversions or by optimizing aircraft performance and flight operations. Here, we expect even more impressive figures.”
CO2 neutrality of its digital product segment is only the first step for Lufthansa Technik. In the four other business segments, too, the continuous reduction of emissions has high priority.
Although neutrality in the rather “classic” industrial segments is much more difficult to achieve than with digital products, Lufthansa Technik has set itself ambitious milestones here as well. By 2025, the CO2 footprint of the entire company is to be reduced by 25% and the share of renewable energies is to increase to 50%. Further milestones exist for increasing the recycling rate (to 75%), improving resource efficiency (by 25%), and reducing the chemical footprint (by 25%).
With an ever-increasing number of sustainability products, such as the Cyclean engine wash system or the surface technology AeroSHARK, Lufthansa Technik also supports airlines around the world in achieving their sustainability goals.
About SQUAKE:
SQUAKE is a CO2 compensation platform aimed at companies from the entire travel, mobility and transport industry. By using a special programming interface, companies can easily calculate and offset the CO2 emissions of the services they offer. This makes it possible to develop sustainable products that are optimally tailored to the needs of their customers. SQUAKE is an independent spin-off of the Lufthansa Innovation Hub.
About Lufthansa Technik:
With some 35 subsidiaries and affiliates, the Lufthansa Technik Group is one of the leading providers of technical aircraft services in the world. Certified internationally as maintenance, production and design organization, the company has a workforce of more than 20,000 employees. Lufthansa Technik’s portfolio covers the entire range of services for commercial and VIP/special mission aircraft, engines, components and landing gear in the areas of digital fleet support, maintenance, repair, overhaul, modification, completion and conversion as well as the manufacture of innovative cabin products.
Featured image credited to Lufthansa Technik
