Saves⁘ The Air Cargo Industry - But What About The Planet?

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Some 786 delegates from upwards of 40 countries attended this year's EU CBEC ecommerce forum in Liege to celebrate air-cargo's "saviour", but ignorance is bliss when it comes to ESG [ Environmental, social and governance] concerns.  

Liege airport (LGG) was the perfect location for this week's event as Europe's fifth biggest air cargo hub in Europe, handling over 1000 tonnes of cargo last year alone, and is a favourite for ecommerce players, not least in part because of its favourable (so far) Customs regime.

And the airport is very cargo focused; just to paint a picture of how few and far between the passenger flights are in Liege, the departures board display in the event's forum not only showed the time of the flights, but the month.  

On to the conference itself, and anyone who is familiar with air cargo conferences would likely bet a hefty wager on any agenda being centred around three main topics of discussion: safety, digitilisation and sustainability.  

However, while many discussions circled back to automation and collaboration at the forum this week, talks about sustainability were notably absent.  

One titled 'marketplaces and sustainability' touched upon the sizeable CO2 emissions and waste products brought about by ecommerce, with panel moderator and TIACA's head of business development Kenneth Gibson noting that the global waste generated by online shopping is projected to grow to 900m metric tons annually by next year.  

In fact, today, The Loadstar reports on Amazon's environmental footprint, which has seen its emissions from air transport rise 67% in five years, while its emissions from dock to door have grown at an average annual rate of 18%.

It's no wonder that many speakers chose to either avoid the topic altogether or shift the blame to consumers ⁘ one noting that little could be done to decarbonise the ecommerce supply chain without SAF.  

The only speaker on the whole event line up with any kind of environmental stake was Atlas Air's chief commercial officer and head of sustainability, Richard Broekman, who himself even pointed out the conflicting interests of his job titles.