Electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft developer Joby Aviation released its first Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) report on Thursday. The report (PDF) covers topics including the company’s approach to safety strategy, the environmental impact of Joby and its aircraft, team member demographics and corporate governance structure. Its development was headed by newly appointed Joby sustainability lead Claire Boland.
“We intend to do everything we can to accelerate the aviation industry’s transition to climate-neutral flight,” said Joby founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt. “This report marks an important step towards a deeper understanding of our environmental footprint and we look forward to building on this foundation in the years ahead.”
According to Joby, the report includes what it believes to be the eVTOL industry’s first comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA). Produced with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the LCA “estimates the life cycle greenhouse gas impact of the Joby aircraft to be 1.5x smaller than an electric car, assuming both vehicles are charged by 100% renewable electricity, used for commuting purposes, and manufactured at scale.” Joby noted that it plans to continue analyzing the projected environmental impact of its aircraft.
How about a report on how much energy and labor is involved creating these ESG reports? Are these companies hiring more employees to work on the reports?
Something has to employ all the hundreds of thousands of graduates every year with “environment” degrees.
Alternative is copy / paste. Sometimes it works.
A few hard questions: Their personnel count is rather high. How many are doing real engineering, vs ESG and bureaucratic reports to attract government funding? How much funding is from actual sales vs government EPA, ESG, DOT, related funding? From what I see in their time line, it’s been 12 years in development, but not yet in production, so apparently no actual sales based income. It highlights a 155 mile flight on one charge. Is that a robust figure ? What load was it carrying? At what temperature? Is this product viable in the real world? Does a fleet of these VTOLs amount to a significant reduction of carbon emissions in the scheme of things? They produce very slick ESG reports, larded with politically correct and bureaucratic claims. But is this just expensive government funded vaporware?
They are following established OHSA, EEOC, and California business regulations. It should only be a news story if they weren’t.
Maybe the operative question is … who here gives a damn ??
Joby is a public owned company that raised over $2B from private and institutional investors. I suspect the 154 mile flight was a maximum effort affair with little battery reserve. Joby’s intended commercial flights are expected to be on the order of 25 miles consistent with an urban mobility infrastructure and air taxi service.
The next generation cares a lot about the impact of aviation on the environment. I teach aviation related STEM classes to middle school and high school kids and they are amazing bright and they have serious questions about what is being done to address climate change. Rightly so, because they will be around for the next several decades and will have to deal with the world we have created for them. One of my students asked me the other day what the life cycle environmental impact would be for an electric aircraft compared to an ICE driven aircraft. These kids take this stuff seriously and new companies like Joby do also.
All of GA contributes an infinitesimal fraction of global carbon emissions. Major expenses in GA towards carbon reduction is an industry hobbling waste of time and money. That bolsters an ESG score, but is essentially irrelevant to actual Carbon reduction. OTOH, Major airline and corporate jets are a significant contributor to upper atmosphere pollution. However, modern jet engines are already very efficient, so it’s questionable how much further reduction in greenhouse gas emission is possible. Reducing the number of flights itself may ultimately be necessary to have a significant reduction of emissions. I hope your STEM students are not becoming climate change zealots, without the ability to understand real world trade offs. For example focusing on GA environmental effects is missing the mark. That is a tempest in a teapot.
To make the point more clear about the irrelevance spending large amounts of money on GA emissions: All aviation emissions amount to about 2.5% of global CO2 emissions. That includes major airlines and air freight. What % of ALL aviation emissions are GA emissions? Very low, perhaps 1%. In that case the total GA emissions are 1% of 2.5% of all global emissions. Which is .025 %. Is that worth heroic effort and costs, compared to other much larger issues? Obviously not.
Notice that they have 3 offices in CA and one is DC. I wonder what the DC office does. Do they get government grants? BTW, what revenue does this company generate (not counting investors)? Does it actually make a profit, or even have any significant sales generated income?
Jond D, you mean .025% of the 2.5% that is man released is GA. Keep dividing since 97.5% of CO2 is From natural sources and keep dividing further since C02 is a minor contributor.
Don’t waste your time with this group Will.
Yeah, Will … INSTEAD … try educating yourself to the hypocrisy, futility and economic folly of electrifying an airplane (or even a ground vehicle). “Battery University” would be a great place to start:
https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-1002b-environmental-benefit-of-the-electric-powertrain
If you really care about the planet, you’ll stop pushing this false narrative onto young impressionable ‘kids.’ John Mc below hits the nail right on the head …
See also:
msn.com/en-us/autos/news/the-real-reason-why-toyota-shuns-electric-cars/ar-AA19JKl5?
Yeah, Will … INSTEAD … try educating yourself to the hypocrisy, futility and economic folly of electrifying an airplane (or even a ground vehicle). “Battery University” would be a great place to start:
batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-1002b-environmental-benefit-of-the-electric-powertrain
If you really care about the planet, you’ll stop pushing this false narrative onto young impressionable ‘kids.’ John Mc below hits the nail right on the head …
Will, it is good that you are working with young people who have a vested interest in addressing the impacts that modern society have on the environment. As you say, they will have to deal with the world after we are all pushing daises. One thing I would encourage you to do is to instill in them that ALL technologies have a good and bad effect. There is no free lunch. Even the renewable energy technologies they seem to love have a negative impact, be it in the mining of minerals for batteries, or the land that wind and solar farms occupy to the detriment of wildlife. In addition, they need to develop a sense of perspective about what impacts all things have on the environment. It they want to make the most of their efforts, should they work on something that contributes less than 1% to carbon emissions or more than 10%? Finally, remember that the use of fossil fuels has had the greatest impact on the well-being of humanity since the discovery of fire. The emotional desire to effect change runs strong in all young people and that’s a good thing. But the ideal is to focus that energy and desire where it will do the most good. Keep up the good work.
John Mc Good- I think you meant to say focus on the 10%. But excellent remarks about perspective, and distinguishing between the < 1% and the 10% as to where to focus priorities. Channeling youthful idealism is necessary.
Wow! Everything’s all just sweetness and light now.
“Our electricity will be 100% renewable, when we need more, we’ll just make some more from our 100% renewable sources, and the environment will scarcely know we’re even here!”, the company gushes. “Why, we’ll even use propellers that have dull edges so a not to damage the air they move!”
No mention of the dollar or materials cost to build all those “renewable energy” sources, nor is there a mention of the cost to dispose of them once they’re worn out. And, as usual, the fact that the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow is conveniently ignored.
We used to lock wild-eyed, irrational people like this up. Time has come to consider it again – this nonsense never ends well.
Years ago, we used to have a ‘nut house’ in Chicago at the end of the electrified bus line on Irving Park Rd (the road that is the S border of O’Hare Field). The nuts would stand by the fence and do all manner of crazy things to entertain the bus riders. The State decided they didn’t need the place so NOW, they work for Joby, et al. AND … they’re brainwashing the kids with all this ‘science’ stuff that fits their narrative. You’re right, Oracle.
On the airport where I summer near Oshkosh, a 99MW PV farm is going in. Ya’ll should see what this looks like. It’s a horrible blight on the former beautiful pristine land. AND … guess where all those PV panels come from … SIGH!
Any company that is focussed on maintaining a great ESG score has put their shareholders, and the financial health of the company, on a lower tier. Ironically unsustainable. Couple that with the laws of physics (electric aircraft), this company is doomed.
Thinking about it some more … here we are — as a ‘community’ — trying to shave mere pounds off of our airplanes and then these people somehow think that carrying tons of batteries around to power numbers of electric motors is “sustainabiliy.” Go to your local auto store and pick up any battery … then tell me this is smart. As to 100% “climate neutral flight” … that’s a crock, too. The only way to do that is to NOT build the airplane.
I used AvWeb’s ‘search’ function to find “Joby.” THIS STUPENDOUS video by Paul Bertorelli showed up … I forgot about it. Produced over a year and a half ago, it tells you everything you need to know about Joby’s chances. All they’re doing is burning OPM … Other People’s Money !!! But NOW … with an ESG report … everything is all better and hunky-dunky (sigh!). 🙁
https://www.avweb.com/multimedia/why-electric-airplanes-face-such-a-tough-haul-joby-edition/
WATCH IT !! (I’d give big bucks to have HALF of PB’s video abilities !!)
Larry Hair on Fire
(If you watch the Avweb video on Joby … you’ll ‘get’ that statement)
Thinking about it some more … here we are — as a ‘community’ — trying to shave mere pounds off of our airplanes and then these people somehow think that carrying tons of batteries around to power numbers of electric motors is “sustainabiliy.” Go to your local auto store and pick up any battery … then tell me this is smart. As to 100% “climate neutral flight” … that’s a crock, too. The only way to do that is to NOT build the airplane.
I used AvWeb’s ‘search’ function to find “Joby.” THIS STUPENDOUS video by Paul Bertorelli showed up … I forgot about it. Produced over a year and a half ago, it tells you everything you need to know about Joby’s chances. All they’re doing is burning OPM … Other People’s Money !!! But NOW … with an ESG report … everything is all better and hunky-dunky (sigh!). 🙁
avweb.com/multimedia/why-electric-airplanes-face-such-a-tough-haul-joby-edition/
WATCH IT !! (I’d give big bucks to have HALF of PB’s video abilities !!)
Larry Hair on Fire
(If you watch the Avweb video on Joby … you’ll ‘get’ that statement)
Here is the JOBY Investor Relations webpage. Read it yourself. It has detailed financials and much else. It apparently has a lot of DOD funding, as well as much other investment. Its current stock market capitalization is ~ $6 billion (I found on Vanguard site). But as far as I can see, its present operations are using investment money, without income from production and sales of a product. It does get income from interest generated from its investment base. Investor Webpage: https://ir.jobyaviation.com/