Global Aviation Sustainability Outlook 2025

The aviation sector faces a critical juncture in 2025, balancing post-pandemic growth with the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. While there is cautious optimism, the availability and cost of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) remain the most significant hurdles. The report highlights a fragmented global policy landscape, technological delays in zero-emission propulsion, and wider geopolitical risks—including US trade policies and airspace closures—that complicate the transition. It emphasizes the need for aligned international standards, increased capital investment, and the role of corporate scope 3 buyers to scale sustainable fuels.

• The availability and cost of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) are identified as the primary challenges for aviation decarbonization in 2025, creating a 'chicken-and-egg' situation where airlines avoid long-term offtake agreements due to low margins, while investors require such agreements to provide capital.
• SAF production capacity is growing, having doubled from 2023 to 2024 to reach an estimated 4.4 million tonnes per year, but demand is still expected to exceed supply by 2030.
• Zero-carbon propulsion development has faced significant setbacks, most notably with Airbus slowing work on its ZEROe programme in February 2025, resulting in a reported delay of up to 10 years.
• Geopolitics is ranked as the top non-sustainability risk, with specific concerns regarding the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in early 2025 and 'America First' trade policies leading to increased protectionism and tariffs.
• A fragmented global policy landscape is emerging, with different regions implementing varying SAF mandates and sustainability standards, potentially leaving Europe and the US vulnerable to competition from Asia and South America due to the latter's feedstock advantages.
• The aviation sector is significantly underfunded for its climate goals, requiring at least $20 billion to meet ICAO's 2030 vision and over $5 trillion to reach net zero, yet it is not viewed as a priority by the financial community.
• The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is expanding from 2025 to incorporate non-CO2 emissions, such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulate matter, and water vapour, increasing regulatory and compliance costs for airlines.
• Interstate conflicts, particularly the closure of Russian airspace, have forced longer flight routes, which increased the climate impact of diverted traffic by 24 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent in the first two years of the war.
• The industry faces critical labour shortages, with ICAO forecasting a need for 480,000 new technicians and over 350,000 pilots by 2026, which may compromise operational safety and the adoption of new sustainability practices.
• There are emerging proposals for global solidarity levies to fund climate finance, including an IMF proposal to price international aviation emissions that could raise $200 billion annually by 2035.

APA

World Economic Forum (2025). Global Aviation Sustainability Outlook 2025. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Aviation_Sustainability_Outlook_2025.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Global Aviation Sustainability Outlook 2025. 2025. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Aviation_Sustainability_Outlook_2025.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Global Aviation Sustainability Outlook 2025 |date=March 2025 |url=https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Aviation_Sustainability_Outlook_2025.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2025global, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Global Aviation Sustainability Outlook 2025}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2025}, month = mar, url = {https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Aviation_Sustainability_Outlook_2025.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }