Signature Flight Support, the world’s largest FBO chain, has achieved carbon neutrality for 2022 across its entire global network that encompasses more than 200 locations.
For the year, the company countered the Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions from all its ground equipment, vehicles, and facilities, including electric power and natural gas heating. It accomplished this through internal investments such as the electrification of vehicles, energy efficiency, and the installation of on-site solar power, as well as grid-based renewable energy. Carbon-credit purchases offset the remainder.
Signature has also pledged to maintain carbon-neutral operations going forward and, as it works to cut back its own emissions, will aim to reduce the number of required carbon offsets to do so. Since 2018, it has slashed its company-wide emissions by 22 percent.
“We’ve set out to achieve ambitious emissions reduction targets, and rather than just making promises we are proud to deliver real, quantifiable progress by becoming the first FBO to achieve carbon neutrality across its entire global network,” said CEO Tony Lefebvre.
The announcement comes as the operator makes its case to be selected as the next operator of the lone FBO at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport. The current operator’s lease will expire later this year, and the county revealed that Signature was one of seven service providers to issue a response to its request for proposals.
With Colorado’s environmental consciousness in mind, Signature is hoping its sustainability credentials will carry the day. Its location at nearby Vail Eagle County Airport was the chain’s first location to achieve carbon neutrality and has carried permanent supplies of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) since last March. Across its entire chain, Signature has sold more than 16 million gallons of SAF, accounting for 80 percent of the renewable fuel sold to general aviation in the U.S.