Key discussions on finance challenges and sustainability at ASD Convention

ASD’s Spring Convention – hosted in Vienna by ASD’s Austrian member associations WKO/ASW and AI Austria – concluded today with a conference on ESG in Security, Defence and Aviation. In two panels, high-level experts from industry and institutional stakeholders discussed key topics in our sector.

The first panel looked at ongoing challenges with access to finance for the defence industry, and the role of both state-owned and private financial institutions, including the European Investment Bank (EIB). Panellists agreed on the need for the financial sector to help bolster Europe’s defence capabilities and strengthen the European Defence Industrial and Technological Base in a dramatically changed security environment. Industry panelists recognised the EIB’s recent lending policy changes as a step in the right direction, but called again for the scrapping of the EIB’s explicit exclusion of pure defence activities. This would send an important signal for other – largely private financial – actors that continue to exclude the defence industry from their portfolios due to overly rigid interpretation of ESG criteria. The panel agreed that more consistency is needed in political and regulatory frameworks.

The second panel focused on the key role of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) in the aviation sector’s roadmap towards net zero, particularly on the challenges in the context of kickstarting and ramping up towards large-scale production of SAF in Europe. The discussion touched on a broad range of aspects from different perspectives (SAF producers, airlines, and aeronautics manufacturers), including production technologies and feedstock, supply/logistics, infrastructure, and the need for – in view of the scale of the task – substantial financial support.  In order to safeguard European aviation sector competitiveness, a level playing field globally, including a harmonised regulatory framework – is urgently needed.