Airlines in Southeast Asia have begun to draw up plans to develop affordable and sustainable aviation biofuels.
Airbus joined with French partners Safran, Air France and Total to conduct the Joining Our Energies — Biofuel Initiative France demonstration flight with an A321 test plane during the Paris Air Show earlier this year.
On Friday, the first workshop under the Southeast Asia Sustainable Aviation Fuel Initiative (SEASAFI) gathered policymakers, regulators, industry stakeholders and non-government organisations at Bangkok.
The meeting was the region's first collective action on the issue, said Martin Eran-Tasker, technical director of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA).
But key questions remain, such as choosing the right feedstocks for renewable aviation fuel in the region, he said.
"Our region has many opportunities to develop biofuels from different types of feedstock, but nobody is really addressing the issues like preferred feedstock, commercial production and distribution," he said.
Within the region, many experiments and studies are being carried out, but they are not coordinated regionally, resulting in the lack of focus and thrust to get it off the ground, he said.
Jatropha and algae are both seen as contenders, while fuels derived from coal or gas would not qualify.
SEASAFI attracted participation from Asean as well as the world's two major planemakers, Airbus and Boeing.
Governments now need to work out policy guidelines and implement incentives such as tax exemptions, Mr Eran-Tasker told the Bangkok Post.
Many of the technical hurdles to sustainable aviation biofuels have already been overcome, he added.
"We have already seen a number of successful demonstration flights using blended aviation fuel based on a variety of feedstocks, he said.
"Now the challenge goes beyond the technology. The next steps to commercialising sustainable aviation fuel production and distribution, with the added benefit of reducing aviation's environmental impacts and the development of a new energy industry, need to be taken."
Asean's aircraft fleet is expected to double over the next two decades, while the price of fossil fuel is set to rise and become more volatile, and global pressure to cut aviation emissions will intensify, he said.
AAPAs airlines carry 705 million passengers and 16 million tonnes of cargo, representing one quarter of global passenger traffic and two fifths of global air cargo traffic, respectively.
The global aviation industry has already set ambitious environmental targets: fuel efficiency improvements of 1.5% per year; carbon neutral growth from 2020 (CNG 2020); and a halving of net emissions by 2050 from 2005 levels.
New aircraft models, along with fuel conservation programmes and improved airspace management, all cut aviation's environmental impact. But sustainable aviation fuels could deliver significant further gains, he said.