Google has joined American Express Global Business Travel's sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) programme, dubbed Avelia, the travel management company announced recently at the Global Business Travel Association convention in Dallas.

"Google joining is significant for three reasons," said Amex GBT VP of global sustainability Nora Lovell Marchant. "It underscores the importance of the customer always coming first. Second, it's the first anniversary of Avelia, the first blockchain-powered solution for SAF. Finally, it underscores the transformative power of technology when it comes to the energy transition."

Amex GBT partnered with Shell Aviation and Accenture, with the support of the Energy Web Foundation to create the book-and-claim platform last year.

"The Avelia model puts customers in control," Lovell Marchant said. "Corporations can purchase SAF and contract for SAF. Whatever the customer puts in the contract, that is what the customer gets: the type of fuel they want, the feedstocks or exclusions of feedstocks from that fuel, the carbon intensity from that fuel and the data from that fuel. … This is how corporations are now doing business. This is how they are embedding decarbonisation right into their travel programmes."

Google joins such companies as Bank of America and Aon as well as carriers in the programme, including Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, Cathay Pacific, and others. She added that the platform also helps avoid double counting by ensuring the environmental attributes associated with SAF are only allocated to the airline and the corporation that invests in SAF.

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Source: Business Travel News