JetBlue Launches ‘Sustainable Travel Partners’ Program

JetBlue has announced the launch of its “JetBlue Sustainable Travel Partners” program. The airline is offering its inaugural customers—Biogen, Deloitte, ICF and Salesforce—a host of benefits to help corporate travel customers reduce their business travel emissions and meet their corporate sustainability targets. JetBlue is approaching sustainable travel as a partnership by providing its corporate travelers with personalized data and resources to help them enhance the sustainability of their travel.

The new program offers corporate partners such resources as business travel emissions reduction through the offering of JetBlue generated sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) certificates; complimentary carbon offsetting on all domestic flights operated by JetBlue; personalized travel data and analysis for more accurate emissions reporting; and consultation and tools for custom planning and target-setting to support in making more sustainable travel decisions.

SAF is a synthetic jet fuel produced from renewable biological resources that can be replenished quickly and without impacting food supply. Compared to traditional petroleum-based Jet-A fuel, SAF can emit up to 80 percent less CO₂ over its lifecycle when used in neat form and also reduces air pollutants. SAF drops into existing engines and infrastructure and is ASTM certified when blended up to 50-50 with fossil Jet-A fuel. With more than a decade’s track record of safe use in aircraft, SAF is recognized as the most promising solution to mitigate air transport emissions currently available.

JetBlue has been flying regularly on SAF as a component of its fuel supply from its partners Neste out of San Francisco International Airport (SFO) since July 2020 and World Energy (SAF producer) and World Fuel Services (logistics supplier) out of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) since July 2021. JetBlue recently shared industry-leading plans to speed up its transition to SAF with a deal with its partner SG Preston that will bring 67 million gallons of blended SAF a year to the Northeast over 10 years. Following this agreement, JetBlue leads the airline industry in committed SAF off-take based on a percentage of total fuel at roughly 8 percent and is on track to meet its goal of converting 10 percent of its total fuel use to SAF years ahead of its 2030 target.

Through the purchase of SAF certificates, JetBlue customers now have the ability to reduce their business travel emissions.

Business travel emissions, categorized as “Scope 3” emissions, are indirect emissions customers are not directly responsible for but that exist within the value chain, such as those produced through corporate travel. By purchasing SAF certificates, corporate customers may reduce their reported carbon footprint, while helping cover the cost premium of SAF that exists today—thereby growing the share of SAF JetBlue is able to source while helping stimulate the emerging SAF market that is critical for the aviation industry to reach its net zero goals. Through the new program, JetBlue’s partners are helping source roughly 325,000 gallons of SAF, helping reduce 2,730 metric tons of CO₂ emissions.

In July 2020, JetBlue became the first U.S. airline to voluntarily offset the CO₂ emissions from jet fuel for all its domestic flights. All of JetBlue’s purchased carbon offsets are audited, verified and retired on the airline’s behalf from its three expert carbon offsetting partners Carbonfund.org, EcoAct and South Pole. As part of its offsetting portfolio, JetBlue selects projects around the globe focused on forestry, landfill gas capture, solar, and wind projects that reduce or avoid CO₂ emissions. As Sustainable Travel Partners, JetBlue’s customers can benefit from enhanced reporting on its complimentary carbon offsets, and review opportunities to expand offsetting.

Through the new program, JetBlue is saving partners the effort of inaccurate guesswork by offering emissions reporting based on travelers’ actual flying and JetBlue’s average actual fuel burn on those routes. JetBlue is also working to include travel emissions data into Salesforce’s Net Zero Cloud with hopes of making this available to the airline’s Sustainable Travel Partners. For corporate customers who purchase SAF certificates, JetBlue will also provide emissions reporting highlighting the estimated emissions reduction associated with the SAF.

JetBlue Sustainability and Corporate Sales representatives are available for personalized conversations to help JetBlue’s business customers develop strategies to reduce their emissions associated with their organization’s business travel. This includes helping set emissions reduction targets associated with their business travel and recommending actions to promote more sustainable travel decisions to achieve these goals.

While JetBlue views SAF and carbon offsetting as promising solutions in addressing aircraft emissions, these are just two pieces of JetBlue’s larger decarbonization strategy, which also includes aircraft efficiency, fuel optimization, electric ground operations and technology partnerships.

The Sustainable Travel Partners Program represents the next step as JetBlue works with its many partners to accelerate solutions to decarbonize aviation. In November 2021, JetBlue announced it had joined Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA), a joint initiative with Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and a forward-looking group of corporate travelers and U.S. airlines to help drive investment in high-integrity SAF. In October 2021, JetBlue joined as a launch member of the Aviation Climate Taskforce, a new non-profit organization founded to accelerate breakthroughs in emerging technologies to decarbonize aviation, alongside nine other global airlines and Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

For more information, visit www.jetblue.com/sustainability.

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