Building ACCEL sustainably

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Rolls-Royce Half Year results

Rolls-Royce announced Half Year results on Thursday 1 August 2024.

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Building our all-electric aircraft sustainably

For the ACCEL programme to be net zero further demonstrates our commitment to developing cleaner, sustainable, lower carbon power.

We recognise the importance of tackling climate change. Our technology will play a fundamental role in enabling the transition to a low carbon global economy and we have a long-standing commitment to reduce the environmental impact of our products, services and manufacturing activities.

This includes an environmental strategy for decarbonising aviation that has three pillars: increasingly fuel-efficient products; encouraging the development of sustainable aviation fuels; and pioneering new technologies including electrification.

As part of this commitment, we are championing sustainable power which includes leading a highly specialised challenge to build the world's fastest all-electric aircraft.

This zero-emissions ACCEL plane is expected to make a run for the record books with a target speed of 300+ MPH (480+ KMH) this year.

The ACCEL project is a series of firsts for Rolls-Royce as it journeys towards net zero carbon by 2050 and that includes being the first Rolls-Royce project to use offsetting to make the whole programme carbon neutral. Offsetting is where you compensate for CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions that you are unable to reduce in your own supply chain, by supporting verified carbon finance projects which reduce the equivalent amount of emissions.

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"For someone at the start of their engineering career working on this pioneering project is just an incredible experience. The team voted on which projects we wanted to support. It was really important to the team for this programme to be carbon neutral as it further demonstrates how Rolls-Royce is committed to developing cleaner, sustainable, lower carbon power."

ACCEL Design Engineer Dan Muckle

Using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) software developed as part of the PLEIADES project – a collaboration project within the EU Clean Sky 2 research programme, we calculated the total life cycle CO2e emissions of the ACCEL programme that were caused by processes where we had limited ability to directly reduce the emissions. These included:

generating the electricity used in the manufacturing process
heating the building
supply chain logistics
sourcing and supplying the raw the materials
manufacturing the batteries
generating the electricity to operate the aircraft during test flights

The total emissions of these processes came to 198 tonnes CO2e, which for comparison is equivalent to running a Formula One Car for just over two seasons.
Sustainability Manager – Engineering & Design Dr Andy Clifton said: "Offsetting the carbon impact for the ACCEL project has been an incredibly valuable process for Rolls-Royce. We have used new tools and programmes to develop our understanding of the offset process and to build on our sustainability ambitions."

Offsetting our total emissions

We are offsetting the 198t CO2e calculated for the project through the Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve REDD+ project in Indonesia, which supports local communities to protect the rainforest, which is home to endangered Orangutans. Closer to home, we are going beyond this by 'twinning' the offset project with a UK based afforestation project. This will plant over 1,100 native broadleaf trees in southern Scotland. Twinning means that our offsetting activities will have both an immediate and longer-term carbon benefit.

Andy added: "Offsetting does have a role to play at Rolls-Royce. However, it is important to remember that the best contribution we can make to help society meet the challenge of climate change is for us to continue to play a leading role in the development of new products and technologies. This will enable the sectors in which we operate to reduce their emissions and reach net zero carbon by 2050."

Building ACCEL sustainably

Building our all-electric aircraft sustainably

Offsetting our total e​missions

Offsetting our total emissions