Feb. 21 (UPI) -- United Airlines on Tuesday unveiled an investment vehicle already packed with more than $100 million to support the advancement of sustainable aviation fuel.
United said its fund already starts with more than $100 million in investments from Air Canada, Boeing, GE Aerospace, JPMorgan Chase and Honeywell, its inaugural partners.
As a consumer incentive, United said the first 10,000 people who book a flight on its website or its app and opt for a personal investment will receive perks through its loyalty program.
"This fund is unique. It's not about offsets or things that are just greenwashing," Scott Kirby, the CEO of United Airlines said in a statement. "Instead, we're creating a system that drives investment to build a new industry around sustainable aviation fuel, essentially from scratch. That's the only way we can actually decarbonize aviation."
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Environmental groups brought legal action against Dutch airline KLM in June, claiming the company falsely claimed to be sustainable in advertising to improve its image, a process referred to as "greenwashing."
The White House, meanwhile, has called on the airline industries to do more with sustainable aviation fuels, or SAF.
But sustainability is improving for commercial airlines. Airlines are among the most difficult to decarbonize because of the lack of alternative fuels, but JetBlue said in December it would invest more in low-carbon and sustainable options to address its Scope 1 emissions, those coming directly from the company's operations, and Scope 3, those coming from up and down JetBlue's value chain.
Researchers at the University of Central Florida are working on a $10 million contract from NASA and Boeing to study ammonia as a clean, climate-friendly jet fuel. Ammonia in its pure form is made up of hydrogen and nitrogen, making it far cleaner to burn than carbon-based fuels.
By itself, United said its invested in the production of more than 3 billion gallons of SAF to date.
