Etihad Airways collaborates with Microsoft on driving sustainability strategy

Etihad Airways has announced a new collaboration with Microsoft, which will see the airline take advantage of Microsoft’s latest tools and technology to help it achieve its sustainability goals. The companies will collaborate to leverage advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor and benchmark Etihad’s environmental impact, allowing the company to execute and analyse carbon efficiency gains across its operations.

“Innovation and sustainability are at the core of our business, and our continued partnership with Microsoft will support us in meeting our sustainability goals to reduce carbon emissions both in the air through operational efficiencies, and on the ground, through improvements in our back-office processes and technology infrastructure,” said Tony Douglas, Group CEO, Etihad Aviation Group.

He added, “Etihad is aligned with the UAE’s mission to conserve and preserve our environment for generations to come and we have made significant progress over the last two years towards our ‘net-zero carbon emissions by 2050’ goal with our sustainability portfolio. We look forward to working closely with Microsoft to enhance these developments.”

The cutting-edge collaboration will focus on the adoption of cutting-edge tools and technology that will transform data into actionable insights and unlock scenarios and use cases that will assist Etihad in reducing its carbon footprint.

“We are aligned with the UAE’s long-term sustainability goals and practices to accelerate growth responsibly, while fulfilling the nation’s ambitious objectives,” said Sayed Hashish, General Manager, Microsoft UAE.

He added, “For more than a decade, Microsoft has been investing to reduce environmental impact while supporting the digital transformation of organisations around the world through cloud services. The commitments and investments we make are important steps in reducing our own environmental impact, but we recognize that the opportunity for positive change is greatest by empowering customers and partners to achieve their own sustainability goals.

Therefore, this partnership with Etihad is incredibly exciting: by empowering more and more organizations with the right insights, we will be able to reach critical mass to reduce carbon emissions on a significant scale.”

Etihad and Microsoft have also agreed to work together to discover opportunities for collaboration in order to meet both companies’ sustainability goals while also establishing thought leadership and expanding partnerships in the UAE and the region. This will help to advance the national sustainability strategy and create a supportive technological ecosystem that will enable businesses of all sizes to reduce carbon emissions through data-driven insights.