The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has announced a partnership with the Aviation Sustainability Forum (ASF) to address cabin waste in the aviation industry. This collaboration aims to launch a standardized Cabin Waste Composition Audit (CWCA), which will be facilitated by the ASF Cabin Waste Composition Auditing Platform set to debut in September 2024.
Marie Owens Thomsen, IATA’s senior vice president of sustainability and chief economist, emphasized the importance of managing and reducing waste as part of aviation’s overall sustainability efforts. “Obtaining standardized and comparable data regarding the composition and quantity of waste from flights will help the industry to reduce the waste it generates,” she stated.
ASF, established in October 2019, is a non-profit collaborative partnership involving various aviation stakeholders working towards sustainable onboard services. The audit data collected through this initiative will guide airlines and policymakers in reducing cabin waste and improving circularity through re-use and recycling.
IATA highlighted that ASF has already conducted trial audits using a methodology developed by IATA. These trials took place at Singapore’s Changi Airport in November 2023 and April 2024, covering 25 flights across short, medium, and long-haul routes. Preliminary results indicated that over 3.6 million metric tonnes of cabin and catering waste are generated annually by the sector, with food and beverage waste accounting for 65% of this total.
Matt Crane, founder of ASF and strategic projects lead at SATS, Asia’s largest aviation caterer, pointed out that progress on cabin waste reduction is lagging behind other sustainability initiatives such as sustainable aviation fuel development. He envisions a new supply chain model focused on optimizing waste reduction and circularity.
Crane noted that previous IATA research identified a lack of standardized methodology for conducting cabin waste audits. A standardized audit would provide harmonized data necessary for informed decision-making by policymakers, airlines, and caterers regarding waste-related issues.
IATA plans to discuss these challenges during its World Sustainability Symposium on September 24-25 in Miami, Florida. Concurrently, other industry efforts are focusing on leveraging technology to enhance sustainability. Companies like Diehl, Thales, Airbus, Boeing, Jeppesen, Safran among others are involved in an i+s Cabin research project aimed at revolutionizing cabin data collection and analysis.
Starting November 2025, results from this project will be available on an evaluation platform funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.
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Featured image credited to Mary Kirby
