Aviation Industry Teams With Wichita State To Go Green
Published Aug 18, 2009
The energy-efficient Boeing 787 Dreamliner
If the sky over Wichita looks a little green, don’t blame the weather – it’s probably just all the sustainability floating around up there.
In the Aircraft Capital of the World, Bombardier Learjet, Cessna Aircraft, Hawker Beechcraft and Spirit AeroSystems have joined forces with Wichita State University to form a coalition promoting corporate sustainability for aircraft manufacturers.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Efforts are under way to establish new recycling programs for industrial waste, such as plastics and textiles, that have previously been relegated to landfills. Many conventional materials, including aluminum and simple plastics, are already being recycled on a large scale.
“These efforts have substantial environmental improvements, because we’re recycling instead of digging new materials out of the ground,” says Michael Overcash, Bloomfield Professor of Sustainability at WSU. “They’re also showing a commitment to reducing the dependence on landfills, and at the same time, they’re looking at the environmental benefits of having materials that they don’t have to throw away and instead are reusing.”
Researchers hope to identify more material streams in the future that are not currently being recycled, but have the potential to be.
Reevaluating the way fuel is used in aircraft is also among the giant tasks the coalition plans to take on. Hawker Beechcraft, for example, in partnership with Teledyne Continental Motors (TCM) and Swift Enterprises, recently achieved success in test flights of its certificated Beechcraft Bonanza G36 using unleaded aviation fuel and Swift Sustainable Fuel.
“This was really, I think, a big first step to finding an alternative to leaded fuel aviation,” says Jeff Waller, director of health and safety for Hawker Beechcraft, adding that the fuel is expected to extend the aircraft range efficiency and cost up to 50 cents less per gallon. “Hawker Beechcraft is committed to meeting the needs of the present, while not compromising the needs of the future.”
Sustaining Collaborations
A partnership between WSU and Hawker Beechcraft, the first general aviation firm with a sustainability program, predates the coalition by about a year, and the additional airplane makers joined the collaboration in March 2009.
“The concept of sustainability applies to multiple companies, so it’s not unique to Hawker Beechcraft, and as a group, some aspects of sustainability like recycling can actually be a better business case than doing it individually,” Overcash says. “That’s the nature of what university centers typically do: They allow companies to come together on noncompetitive issues to look for solutions that don’t arise from a single organization.”
In addition to the coalition, Boeing’s Wichita facility received environmental certification in March 2009 from the International Standardization Organization, and the company’s newest commercial airliners, the 787 Dreamliner and the 747-8, feature dramatically improved fuel efficiency and decreased carbon dioxide emissions.
Corporate sustainability experts are enthusiastic about the aircraft manufacturers’ progress not only for the direct environmental benefits, but also for the example they set both for other aviation companies as well as additional industries.
“The success that we have and that the aviation companies have already had is leading to an improvement in sustainability,” Overcash says. “That is a long-term goal, and people often refer to it as making it better for our children and grandchildren. So that’s a good thing to see, when we make steps in that direction.”
Story by Michaela Jackson
Photo by Photo Courtesy of The Boeing Company
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