Greening aviation in era of COVID-19: Towards conceptualizing and operationalizing decarbonization

Although net-zero greenhouse gas emission targets continue to gather burgeoning streams of research, there is a lacuna in current literature on the pathway challenges towards operationalizing decarbonization. The study advanced 2 x 2 matrix of an organizing framework of challenges in accomplishing net-zero emissions targets. Using the global airline industry as an illustrative context, the study provided deep insights on the pivotal in-dustry, institutional, and organizational challenges in the era of COVID-19 such as fleet modernization, over-reliance on fossil fuel, slow progress in the development of hydrogen and electric aircraft, risk of corporate greenwashing, and divergent approaches adopted by airlines. The challenges can be classified into policy -oriented, organization-specific, and external/macro-environment factors. The contributions to theory and practices were identified and examined.

Automated summary

This study proposes an organizational framework to address the challenges of achieving net-zero emissions targets and conducts in-depth research using the global airline industry as an example. The study identifies key industry, institutional, and organizational challenges in the era of COVID-19, such as fleet modernization and over-reliance on fossil fuels.