Consortium Urges Incentives For Use Of Circular Materials In Aviation

SINGAPORE—The Aviation Circularity Consortium (ACC) is urging the air transport industry to take a holistic approach to promote and ensure the certification of reprocessed and high-quality materials across the life cycle of an aircraft, as the industry works towards its net-zero goal by 2050.

The ACC on Nov. 20 published its Aviation Circularity 2050 roadmap, structured around four key drivers to trigger demand, set up clear technical and regulatory frameworks, establish supply and scale circularity across the supply chain, as well as design the supply chain with circularity in mind.

The roadmap says 90% of an aircraft can be recycled. However, the materials are either not captured by high-performance circular value streams or heavily downcycled and used as low-value products in other industries.

The ACC was established in early 2024 by Nandina REM, Jamco America, Qantas, Sumitomo Corporation Asia & Oceania, Titan Leasing and Vaupell. The group says it was formed “to catalyze a circular economy model that creates value from the 8,000 end-of-life retired aircraft housed in boneyards around the world.” The model, ACC said, “bridges the gap between unused materials from retired aircrafts and the growing demand from manufacturing industries for high-quality resources and enables permanent emissions reductions in the global supply chain.”

“The technology needed to recover materials from retired aircraft and reprocess them back into aviation-grade, industry-certifiable materials already exists,” says Nandina REM CEO Karina Cady. “What is needed now is to scale circularity at speed, and we need to do this as a consortium to unlock the maximum potential.” Singapore-based startup Nandina REM extracts materials such as carbon fiber from retired aircraft for reuse in the automobile industry.

ACC’s roadmap calls for airlines to trigger demand by including circular material requirements in requests for proposals and material purchase orders. The organization is also urging carriers to participate in pilot programs and establish recycling and material recovery requirements in cabin refits and material recovery and separation processes.

The group says governments and regulators must incentivize the use of circular materials in the supply chain and establish guidelines for “adoption of circular practices in procurement, manufacturing and reprocessing.”