Sustainability is transforming the aviation industry. Here’s how the world’s largest aerospace and defense company is helping.

The aviation industry has a collective goal: Reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. It’s ambitious, especially considering the pressure the industry is under to put more planes in the air. “Commercial aviation has roughly doubled every 20 years, and we anticipate that growth to continue,” said Juan de Bedout, vice president of aerospace technology at RTX, the largest aerospace and defense company in the world.

The challenge of emissions reduction in the face of growth can be more than counterbalanced by the industry’s long history of collaboration, according to Haldane Dodd, executive director of the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG), a global coalition focused on sustainability efforts within the aviation industry. “We have 120,000 flights that take place every day across the world,” he explained. “From the engineers to the airlines to manufacturers to air traffic to government regulations, it’s a global dance of collaboration to even get one flight off the ground.”

This worldwide, cross-discipline teamwork is why Dodd is confident the industry will reach its sustainability goals. “We’re not unique in facing climate challenges, but we are unique in the fact the aviation industry is working together to make change happen as a whole sector,” he said.

ATAG is leading the charge into a more sustainable era in aviation and RTX, which employs more than 180,000 people worldwide, is using its scale to help. In 2022, the company’s business units, which include engine maker Pratt & Whitney and aerospace manufacturer and supplier Collins Aerospace, spent over $7 billion in company-funded and customer-funded research and development, which included sustainability projects such as:

• Developing higher-efficiency engines
• Advancing hybrid electric propulsion
• Enabling greater use of sustainable aviation fuels
• Making aircraft systems and parts lighter and more energy-efficient
• Optimizing air traffic management

HALDANE DODD, Air Transport Action Group

RTX also prioritizes working with governments on projects including a hybrid-electric flight demonstrator and a highly efficient hydrogen-fueled engine, and they've collaborated with suppliers on voluntary sustainability standards. De Bedout shares that RTX is focused on building a sustainable way forward for the company and the industry by challenging their community of 59,000 engineers to be creative, reimagine what is possible in our market segments, and drive differentiating innovation into all of our offerings.

Action starts with cooperation

Sustainability and efficiency have long been ingrained in the culture of RTX. Those efforts are now directed toward the net-zero emission industry goal which has facilitated investments and collaborations not only across business units, but with governments, airlines and other companies.

“Our breadth of tip-to-tail solutions provides us with unique opportunities to create sustainable solutions through the combination of systems” said LeAnn Ridgeway, chief sustainability officer of Collins Aerospace, an RTX business.

One such example: power and thermal management. Thermal management encompasses the tools and technologies to control overall temperature on an aircraft, aviation systems that will become even more critical as hybrid-electric and electric propulsion systems are adopted. Hybrid and electric propulsion requires adding fuel cells and batteries to aircraft which generate waste heat that must be removed. The company is leveraging organization-wide resources to optimize thermal management systems to be more energy efficient and lighter. 

The company’s structure enables engineers to collaborate across businesses in optimizing the efficiency of what they design and build, and thus the support they provide to sustainability initiatives.

Collaboration extends outward, too. RTX is working with the International Aerospace Environmental Group to develop voluntary standards for aviation suppliers. “This will create transparency and a more sustainable supply chain,” said Ridgeway. Another example of collaboration within the sustainability space are RTX's projects with Clean Aviation, the European Union’s sustainable aviation research and innovation program. “We were awarded seven projects last year,” Ridgeway said. “We’re working with airframers, engine makers, suppliers and academics to develop disruptive, sustainable technologies.”

Analyzing data for sustainability

Reaching the net-zero goal will take more than best-in-class engine technology and advance fuels. It’s going to involve the real-time choices that pilots, air traffic control and on-the-ground crews make every day. That’s why another key RTX initiative is increasing efficiency at every point during a gate-to-gate journey.

“We’re really harnessing data,” Ridgeway said, adding that FlightAware, a division of Collins, uses predictive modeling to enhance operational efficiencies and helps pilots determine the most efficient and sustainable route. For example, contrails—the ice clouds formed when particles from jet exhaust mix with water vapor—trap heat in the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. Collins is working on leveraging flight and weather data sets to predict whether or not a flight path is likely to produce contrails, which will eventually allow for real-time flight adjustments that can avoid their formation.

The goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 is ambitious and will require the full industry working together.

“We’re changing the world. RTX is literally creating the future,” de Bedout said of the company’s abilities to meet the aviation industry’s environmental challenges. “More and more people are connected through aviation. And we are putting the full weight of our company to supporting that connectivity in a way that improves the planet for future generations.”