Two years ago, Amy Strang found herself as one of a very small group of young professionals working in sustainable aviation in her home country of New Zealand. “I felt disconnected and was wondering, ‘Where are the other people like me?’”, she says. A mechatronics engineer by background, she had already spent six years working in land transport and aviation, all the while being driven by a passion for transforming the way people move from A to B. “I am one of so many professionals of my generation whom I know care deeply about sustainability, but I didn’t see a clear way for those of us in the aviation sector to come together and do something with that, on a global front.”
Shortly after relocating to France for a new position at Airbus, Amy couldn’t shake the idea that she needed to create a platform for others like her with a passion for sustainability and aviation. With guidance from her higher ups at Airbus and the support of ATAG, Amy set out to assemble a taskforce of 12 professionals from across the aviation industry, aged 35 and under, who shared her ambition. Together, they formed Emerging Leaders in Sustainable Aviation (ELSA), a global platform empowering next generation’s sustainability and aviation leaders with the knowledge, skills and professional networks to make key industry decisions in the decades to come, guiding the sector towards its goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and beyond.
“Determining ELSA’s purpose and what it would offer young professionals was an important opportunity to define scope,” says Casey Ferriter, ESG Project Manager at Airports Council International (ACI) World. “At the beginning, there was a risk of trying to be everything to everyone, but we knew we needed to maintain focus on our ability to cultivate the talent of rising leaders in our industry.”
Delivering on this purpose meant ensuring that ELSA would offer content and events that were useful and accessible for its 35 and under members. “All of us had been to industry in-person events and webinars focused on sustainability,” says Anna Misley, Sustainability Engineer at Boeing. “But we wanted to challenge ourselves to create an experience for members that they can’t get from other opportunities, whether it’s asking a question to a C-suite level executive or exchanging lessons learned with a peer from the other side of the world.”
But in an industry already saturated with sustainability messages, ELSA needed a unique voice to cut through the noise and raise awareness about how to join. “Young professionals in the aviation sector have a different perspective from those making the decisions today,” says Sophia Haywood, Director, EU and UK Government Affairs, Policy and Sustainability at LanzaJet. “They have a lot of passion to make a difference in air travel, but know they need to build experience and connections, so we really wanted to speak to that in our communications about who we are at ELSA and what we do.”
From its start as an idea of Amy Strang, to launch day at the ICAO Innovation Fair, ELSA has sparked a wave of interest and excitement for what the rising generation of sustainability and aviation professionals can do with the tools it will provide. The ELSA executive committee is incredibly grateful for the support the group has received from ATAG and senior supporters along with all of the taskforce members who contributed to the founding of ELSA, including Julia Andrieu, Jacob Anderson, Anouck Barreaux, Felix Eggert, Casey Ferriter, Sophia Haywood, Emilio Iglesias, Jane Lindsay, Anna Misley, Hannah Monaghan, John O’Brien, Astha Srivastav and Natalia Verzaro.
Thank you to our emerging leaders, those on the journey with us now and those who are yet to join us.