Award Winning Commitment to Sustainability
03 Dec 2019
On 3rd December RINA joined our RAF partners at MOD Main Building to jointly receive a prestigious MOD Sanctuary Award 2019, presented by the Minister for Defence Procurement.
The MOD Sanctuary Awards recognise the commitment to sustainability from staff, volunteers, industry partners and contractors across the defence estate. The annual awards showcase the achievements of teams and individuals working to preserve and protect the defence estate, both in the UK and globally.
As valued and long-standing partners since its conception in 2015, RINA supports the delivery of the high-profile 2 Group Air Mobility Force Headquarters Fuel Management Cell (AMF HQ FMC) Fuel Efficiencies and Emissions Reduction (FEER) project. The FEER project is at the vanguard of delivering sustainable efficiencies in a military environment, adopting Airline Industry Best Practice and tailoring initiatives to the AMF. The project has exceeded ambitious targets to realise £24.4M of benefit since 2015, and aviation industry partners advise that no other Air Force has delivered such benefit with such rapidity.
The project seeks to embed sustainable behavioural change to reduce fuel usage and carbon emissions by AMF aircraft. Significant saving opportunities have been identified across mission planning, policy, in-flight fuel management, engineering, logistics, and contractual arrangements with a focus on reducing the delta between the funded position, planned and actual usage. The project looks at the way the AMF fly, how they are tasked, how their aircraft perform, how much fuel they carry, what they pay for fuel, how they are contracted and invoiced, and how they reduce their carbon footprint. Implementing over 60 efficiency initiatives on four aircraft types, with varying mind-sets, support solutions and data acquisition capabilities is no mean feat.
The excellent work carried out was fully rewarded when, not only did the project win the Utilities Achievement Award, but also the Sustainable Business Award; presented for more commercial (not predominantly MOD led) projects which have achieved particular success in ensuring sustainable solutions that deliver against the commitment to the Armed Forces by enabling them to live, train and work.
The Sustainable Business Award is only announced on the day, so came as a welcome surprise, and delighted the Fuel Cell SRO Air Commodore Stamp who was in attendance.
The huge success of this project demonstrates clearly the value locked up in MOD data. RINA has been invaluable in unlocking this value, first by collating and managing the most comprehensive fuel data repository in the RAF, and then bringing to bear best-in-class analytic methods and tools to support informed decision making. The FMC is now the ‘go-to’ organisation for fuel information and is often called upon by Permanent Joint HQ, Defence Supply Chain Operations and Movements, Defence Equipment & Support, HQ Air and Platform Delivery Teams to provide SME advice and guidance.
We are proud to provide ongoing support to our RAF colleagues in pursuit of sustainable change in the Air Mobility Force, and we are honoured to share in the recognition conferred by a MOD Sanctuary Award 2019.
