In late 2021 Alex, our Founder and CEO, attended an energy conference focused on sustainability planning in order to decarbonise energy systems.

It was very clear to Alex that there were many options to decarbonise shipping, road transportation, and infrastructure but a distinct lack of viable opportunities which could realistically offer the same opportunities to the aviation sector.

As a Fuels Subject Matter Expert, Alex has a strong understanding of the aviation sector’s downstream requirements, including fuel performance, safety, accounting, logistics, the quality assurance regime, and fuels science including the environmental impact of the energy system. Although Alex didn’t have any upstream experience in fuel production, he did understand this in detail.

From here, Alex weighed up the advantages and disadvantages to the most viable options for the aviation sector - only technologies at TRL 7 or higher were considered given that any new technology to the market would require decades to be rolled out to the aviation sector.

These options included; doing nothing, using carbon credits to off-set fossil jet fuel, hydrogen combustion, hydrogen fuel cell, battery electric and bio-fuels. The the research and critical thinking led Alex to a number of key factors often overlooked in this space;

• the supply chain of materials needed to produce these fuels

• the energy requirements of that system as a measure of its efficiency

• the cost of that process

• the end-to-end environmental impacts of the various options

• the changes required to the ground based infrastructure/aircraft and their engines.

The conclusion was that Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) had to be the solution as all other options would not provide the system with these requirements and therefore would require much more finance and time in order to drive these changes - the aviation sector cannot afford either.

Alex carried out extensive research into SAF and ruled out bio-fuels for a number of reasons, but predominately this was due to the negative environmental impact they can very easily inflict on the planet. The only solution was synthetic fuels, and here he as an entrepreneur, saw the significant opportunity.

Alex called an entrepreneur friend, Jason, with considerable experience in the commercial profession offering transformation to FTSE 250 companies at board level. More specifically, Jason’s experience included upstream power generation.

The two bounced ideas off-one another and each time they spoke, they could see increasing potential in this as a business concept. Jason introduced Alex to Michael, an economist by background, who also had significant experience in the energy sector namely by advising governments about the options for strategic energy decisions.

They explored the sector, the markets needs and the technology required and realised that between them, they had the relevant knowledge, experience and expertise to do something about this; and so they co-founded the company (previously called Net Zero Aviation Fuels).

Alex, Jason and Michael share the same values; namely that environmental protection is of crucial importance and so every action in the company must therefore support this central premise.

The founders grew the team with a fantastic group of people you can read about here, established key relationships with academics, universities, multinational suppliers, the Defence community, and strategic advisors; all whilst developing the business plan.

They knew that we had to solve the commercial challenges in order for the sector to adopt the technology in a meaningful way. This drove further critical thinking, particularly in value creation for the very aspiring business.

To date we have built a business model which underpins the values, outlines the sizeable commercial advantages, and was designed in from its inception, to be the greenest possible solution facing the aviation sector, all whilst being amongst the cheapest solution to drive sustainability.

Regular strategy sessions ensure all stakeholders are involved and actively challenge each other; is this the very best we can do, and is the most sustainable option to the aviation sector? Although a young company, we already are building a strong culture of sustainability excellence.

In early 2023 with a CMO now onboard the company rebranded with the assistance of SimpliFlying, the we rebranded to CirculAIRity which reflects the nature of the process - aircraft exhaust gases in, SAF out!