A wakeup call is shaking up the aerospace industry on environmental concerns as manufacturers scramble to devise ways to achieve a greener footprint, with a flurry of new policy and technology initiatives emerging.

Europe is considering enticements to encourage fleet replacements and phase out old aircraft faster, says Guenther Verheugen, European Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry. He’s concerned that even as cleaner aircraft emerge it can take decade to generate the full environmental effect as old aircraft are kept in service.

Even the military is getting into the mix, albeit driven more by concerns of cost of fuel than environmental considerations. The U.S. Air Force is building a financial case to convince U.S. airlines to embrace synthetic fuels. The Air Force hopes a larger user base would drive down costs. "Every $10 a barrel is essentially $600 million in my annual budget," says USAF Secretary Michael Wynne.

Last year, the Air Force tested and qualified a 50-50 mix of jet and Fischer-Tropsch derived fuels for use on a B-52. Wynne says the next step will be qualifying the synthetic mix on the C-17, which is powered by the Pratt & Whitney F117-PW-100 turbofans. "The C-17 engine is a direct commercial derivative," Wynne said. "So, that will allow our partners in flight - the airline companies if they so choose - to essentially use the data that we compile to allow them to fly with synthetic fuels."

But on the commercial side the stakes for industry are much higher. The greening demands will shape engine and aircraft design and the next-generation short-haul aircraft to replace the ubiquitous Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s is squarely in the crosshairs. Environmental issues will be "one of the biggest challenges for the eventual A320 successor," says Airbus CEO Louis Gallois. That view is echoed by Goodrich CEO Marshall Larson, who notes that "the green movement is going to be a big issue in the next aircraft."

Neither Boeing nor Airbus can afford to be wrong. With that aircraft "you really are betting the company," notes Tom Williams, Airbus executive vice president for programs.

For a long time, the air transport sector has tried to combat criticism of its polluting effects by citing studies it contributes a mere 2%-3% of global carbon dioxide emissions and even with growth will not top 5% for the next few decades. But gradually the industry has realized that sticking to that mantra is a losing strategy and that more needs to be done. Boeing Commercial Aircraft president Scott Carson defends the statistics, but acknowledges that "as our fleets double, we cannot allow our emissions to double." And, he notes, "a year ago, if you complied [with regulations] that was sufficient," but that in the future that will not be so.

Airlines are now setting an agenda even more aggressive than European regulators, aircraft and engine manufacturers had prepared. Europe’s research has been driven by the Advisory Council for Aeronautical Research in Europe, which called for a reduction, by 2020, of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 50%, noise by 50% and nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 80%. Gallois point out some of the demands put forward by airlines are even more aggressive than what was already considered stretch goals.

"There is a growing faction of airlines which would like to see this technology now. They’re saying ’let’s bring this home’ and they have fleets they want to replace now," says Louis Chenevert, president and COO of United Technology Corp.

For more on these developments, see the June 25 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology