A System Dynamics Approach in Mitigating the Environmental Impact of the Aviation Sector

Despite various efforts to mitigate the carbon emissions brought about by the aviation sector, its dynamic behaviour has portrayed no point of improvement with its current trend. While notable studies have presented solutions in aspects of aircraft technology, aircraft design, and aircraft fuel, the increasing demand for air travel has remained a threat to the little environmental improvement that has been done. This study aims to use a systems dynamic approach to understand the dynamic behaviour of the increasing carbon emissions from the aviation sector. A model was developed to perform simulation runs. until 2050. Solutions such as green airports, tariff intervention, sustainable aviation fuel, electric aircraft propulsion, and changing the travel behaviour of passengers were simulated. The results show that the fundamental solution, which has been tested also in Europe, is to change the travel behaviour of people, instead of just offsetting carbon emissions such as using sustainable aviation fuel or building green airports. In other words, the fundamental way to mitigate the increase of carbon emissions in the aviation sector is not to just offset the carbon emissions, but to attack the root cause of it, which is the increasing demand for air travel.