Courtesy of: Aruba Daily
Aruba’s Prime Minister Mike Eman received the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Airbus that just completed a 10-hour flight from Amsterdam to Aruba using sustainable jet fuel. This marks the longest biofuel flight to date by an Airbus aircraft and another step forward on the journey to more sustainable aviation, by reducing CO2 emissions and fuel consumption.
The Airbus flew with a 20% blend of sustainable fuel made of used cooking oil as the first of a series called “Initiative Towards sustainable Kerosene for Aviation” (ITAKA), which aims to speed up the commercialization of aviation biofuels in Europe. KLM and the Dutch government chose Aruba and Bonaire as the best destination for these flights because both islands have a high sustainability agenda, aiming to be carbon neutral by 2020. Aruba aims to have a 100 per cent sustainable economy by 2020.
A large delegation was on-board, including Camiel Eurlings, President & CEO KLM, Jos Nijhuis, CEO Schiphol Group, Paul Riemens, CEO LVNL and chair of CANSO, Johan van de Gronden, CEO of WWF-NL, Andrea Debbane, Head of Environmental Affairs Airbus Group, and Paul Verhoef, Head of Unit Renewable Energy Resources of the European Commission. The President of Carbon War Room Jose Maria Figueres was also on the flight with the winners of the Green Aruba Challenge.
The Green Aruba Challenge is an initiative of KLM Innovations, directed at looking for promising sustainable solutions for a better world that can be implemented on Aruba with support from KLM. In April, KLM challenged innovators to send their concepts to the greenaruba.klm.com platform.
The Green Aruba Challenge represents a perfect match between KLM and Aruba, because of Aruba’s ambition to become carbon neutral by 2020 and KLM’s ambition to reduce CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020.
The submitters of the five best concepts were invited by KLM and Aruba to present their ideas to a panel of judges consisting of Mike Eman, Camiel Eurlings, several CEO’s and high-level local experts on May 17th at the Dr. Edward Cheung Aruba Center for Innovation.
Ideas were submitted from various parts of the world and on May 9th, twelve selected participants were asked to give a presentation at the KLM headquarters in Amstelveen for KLM’s top executive Wim de Jong and Aruba Minister Plenipotentiary in The Hague Alfonso Boekhoudt.
The finalists are: Maarten von Wining with “Minipower,” Jan Tijs Nijssen and Jurrian Ruys with “Land Life Box,” Chintan Shah with “Tvilight,” Lara van Druten with “Waste Transformers” and Hompe Heijmerink with “Evening Breeze.”
The winner of the Green Aruba Challenge will receive financial support from KLM on Aruba for a quick implementation of the business concept.
