Committee Resources – Climate

Terms of Reference

INTRODUCTION

The British Columbia Aviation Council (BCAC), founded in 1938, has a long and successful history as an advocate and common voice for the Province’s aviation industry. Throughout the years, it had been instrumental in supporting the region’s airports, championing air operator issues and providing a strong and unified voice on political and regulatory matters related to aviation.

The Council’s role today is best summed up in its Vision and Mission Statements. These are, respectively:

“An aviation and aerospace industry that is visible, connected and thriving.”

“To promote, stimulate and encourage the sustainable development, growth and advancement of aviation and aerospace in British Columbia.”

Organizationally, a Board of Directors provides overall governance and support to Council and committee activities. To achieve its mission, the Council has formed several standing committees aligned with the various components of industry.

Purpose

Given the recent call for action by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the world to reach net zero carbon by 2050, the aviation sector has a key role to play in responding to this global challenge. While aviation accounts for only 2.5% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, it is among the fastest growing sectors and one that is difficult to decarbonize due to the large amounts of energy needed to fly long distances.
Airports, airlines and other businesses within the aviation sector are embracing this challenge, making commitments to use energy more efficiently, setting long-term carbon targets to reach net zero and
investing in technologies to enable low carbon flight. At the same time, public perception of flying demands that the aviation sector provides a low carbon option for air travel to meet consumer demand.
As we work toward decarbonizing aviation, partnering together across industry on shared challenges is more important than ever. This partnership will enable us to learn from each other, develop solutions, invest collaboratively in new technologies and support our collective journey to net zero.
The role of the BCAC Climate Committee is to bring stakeholders together from across our industry to
advance ideas, implement action for lasting emission reductions and thus create a greener and more
resilient future.

Objectives

The following is an initial list of high-level objectives the Committee will focus our efforts on and will assist in forming a basis for establishing ongoing agendas for discussion/action.

Shared learnings/resourcing – the Committee will act as a platform for sharing work that has been completed to date and to support each other with resources whenever possible.
Procurement – the Committee will explore opportunities to partner and leverage our combined purchasing power to assist in supporting and building supply chains that enable our collective sustainability goals.
Policy – the Committee will identify key policy initiatives required to advance environmental objectives, which can be fed into our respective Government Relations departments.
Partnerships – the Committee will share experiences around key partnerships and incentivize opportunities with major energy providers such as BC hydro and Fortis.
Education and Awareness– the Committee will educate and raise awareness around key topics including Sustainable Aviation Fuel, electrification opportunities, renewable fuels and carbon offsets/removals, as we look to build and support our local supply chain.

Governance & Participants

The Committee will endeavour to have broad industry representation, including air operators, airports, environmental specialists and other subject matter experts/key stakeholders.
The Committee will appoint both a Chair and a board liaison, who will have responsibility for providing updates to the Board.
Any expenditures for the Committee require approval from the Board.
This TOR will be reviewed periodically by the Committee, to ensure objectives are updated to reflect industry needs.
The Committee will hold one-hour monthly meetings, targeted for the week pre-ceding each Board meeting.