Neste and Boston Consulting Group announce new sustainable aviation fuel partnership to reduce the climate impact of business air travel

Photo: Sami Jauhiainen, Vice President, Business Development at Neste and Tuukka Seppä, Managing Director and Senior Partner at Boston Consulting Group signing the agreement

Neste and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) have signed a new agreement for the purchase of Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel™, to be delivered to airlines SAS and Finnair, covering the volume of all the flights with these carriers taken by BCG employees in the Nordics. Through this new partnership, BCG expects to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions on flights with these airlines.

As companies adopt new meeting and engagement approaches taking the lessons learned during the global pandemic, some corporate travel for in-person meetings is likely to remain. Purchasing Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) can help companies to minimize the climate impact of their air travel that is still required. In early April 2021, Neste already made Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel available to Finnair at Helsinki Airport to reduce emissions resulting from Neste’s own business air travel. And now, BCG is the first corporate client of Neste that is benefiting from the same SAF-based solution for emission reductions.

BCG has committed to achieving net-zero climate impact by 2030, and supports efforts to scale up the adoption of sustainable aviation fuels to decarbonize air travel as part of its broader strategy to reduce emissions resulting from business travel. SAF is an important lever to reduce the climate impact of flying, and the use of Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel offers up to 80%* reduction in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) compared to conventional fossil jet fuel. Partnerships like this are an important step in scaling up the SAF market by sending a clear demand signal.

Solution to reach emission reduction targets

With this SAF-based solution, Neste and its airline partners help organizations to reach their emission reduction targets. Neste’s SAF-based solution is sold to organizations directly and delivered to their most frequently used airlines. The solution includes a third-party audit process to ensure that other customers cannot claim emission reduction on the same SAF volume. As regulatory frameworks obligating SAF use in aviation are still in early phases of development, businesses can take the lead in making a significant climate impact as sustainability frontrunners in their sectors.

Tuukka Seppä, Managing Partner of BCG Nordics: “The core value proposition of BCG is to connect our clients with the best global expertise and talent, whatever the business issue at hand might be. Next generation ways of working have opened up tremendous opportunities to accomplish this virtually. Yet, some travel will be needed going forward in order to deliver the greatest value to our clients. We are excited to boldly reduce emissions from business travel, together with Neste and the airlines Finnair and SAS. This move is part of BCG’s global efforts to advance the path to lower-carbon travel, and is an important step on our journey to net-zero climate impact by 2030.”

“After setting an example by using Neste MY Sustainable Aviation Fuel to reduce emissions from our own corporate air traveling, we are delighted that BCG decided to become our first customer to make use of our solution,” says Sami Jauhiainen, Vice President Business Development, Renewable Aviation at Neste. “Aviation will remain important for global business, generating growth and facilitating economic recovery. This is why we need solutions which enable growth and reduce emissions at the same time. We are really pleased to partner up with a leading international consultancy firm like BCG to make this happen.”

“Sustainable Aviation Fuel is a very important part of aviation’s transition to lower GHG emissions. The commercialization of SAF is in its beginning, and all initiatives that potentially can accelerate the development are positive. We need to work together to achieve the necessary GHG emission reductions from aviation, and solutions like this will definitely play an important role in this journey towards lower emissions,“ says Lars Andersen Resare, Head of Sustainability, SAS.

”We are excited to see the commitment of corporate travelers to join the common cause of making air travel more sustainable. Air travel brings great social and economic benefits, and for those to continue, we need to together solve the climate challenge of flying,” says Anne Larilahti, Vice President, Sustainability, Finnair.

*) Calculated with established life cycle assessment LCA methodologies, among which EU RED and CORSIA