Blue Bird, Blue Planet, Blue Wings

Happy New Year, everyone. I pray from the bottom of my heart that 2022 will be a happy year for all of you.

“Only One Earth.” I’ll never forget how, fifty years ago as a junior high school student, these words moved me. This was the slogan adopted at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, the world’s first intergovernmental meeting on the environment, held in Stockholm in 1972. I made a poster that combined “Only One Earth” with the design of the UN flag and had it posted on the school bulletin board. Then, just last December, Syukuro Manabe made headlines by winning the Nobel Prize in Physics. Back in 1967, using a computer-developed climate model, he was the first in the world to show that increased atmospheric CO2 would increase the temperature of the earth’s surface. Not long ago, US thinker Buckminster Fuller likened the earth sailing through space to a ship and advanced the concept of “Spaceship Earth.” The main engine of the spacecraft was originally designed to run with just renewable energy, and fossil fuels had to be used only to start the engine. But, he sounded the alarm that humans have been misusing, overworking, and polluting the earth’s energy exchange systems. The research by Dr. Manabe and his colleagues scientifically verified that global warming is a cry for help from the earth against the current economic system.

I majored in economics in university, but none of the theoretical economics classes I took considered the natural environment as capital. However, Hirofumi Uzawa was the dean of economics at the time, and an exceptional person. He considered education, medical care, and other indispensable systems humans use to maintain the dignity of living and protect the natural environment, as “social common capital.” In 2015, the United Nations set out Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to reform economic systems that bring sustainability and stability to society. The Japanese word for “economics” (経済) originally comes from “経世済民,” a phrase found in classical Chinese literature meaning “governing a nation and providing relief to its people.” Dr. Uzawa may well have been talking about how economics should be studied from this point of view.

Let me introduce how the aviation industry will deal with global environmental problems in the future. At its annual meeting last October, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) resolved that the goal of the global aviation industry is to be carbon-neutral by 2050. In addition to conventional initiatives such as the introduction of new environmentally friendly aircraft and the improvement of operation methods, the most important thing for us in the future is the operation of aircraft that mix sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) with conventional aviation fuel. SAF refers to aviation fuels that are not derived from fossil fuels, such as biofuels. Using SAF can reduce CO2 emissions by about 80%. Last October, the ANA Group launched the SAF Flight Initiative as part of its ANA Future Promise, a concrete SDG implementation program. Although there will be difficulties in making SAF practical, ANA will continue to operate flights fueled by a blend of SAF and conventional fuel in the future. Please take a look at our interview with Yuji Akasaka, president of Japan Airlines, about SAF in our in-flight magazine, TSUBASA –GLOBAL WINGS-.

In Dr. Uzawa’s biography Against Capitalism, there is a story about how he went looking for a blue bird when he was younger. Maybe in his later years, that blue bird became a blue planet. The ANA Group will continue to do its utmost to safely operate its blue wings and strive to be an indispensable part of your everyday life.