Sustainability and Environment

The Member of the European Parliament Caroline Nagtegaal talked to Royal NLR about the challenges in aviation. The climate challenge does not stop at national borders. It is a complex issue that concerns the whole of Europe. A lot needs to be done outside the aviation sector too to make the continent climate-neutral by 2050.

This is the Week of the Circular Economy in the Netherlands. During last year’s edition, NLR organised a webinar and, together with its partners, NLR has been up to a lot since then. Connections were made with like-minded organisations and NLR incorporated the concept of circular aviation in its new Climate-Neutral Aviation programme. However, many more circular practices still need to be included.

At the beginning of 2021 NLR initiated an ambitious project with a view to flying its HYDRA-2 drone using liquid hydrogen in a full composite tank by the end of 2022. As the end of this year approaches, the NLR project team looks back at the challenges faced and celebrates its achievements.

The Dutch aviation sector is investing in clean and smart mobility. To do that, various consortiums under the auspices of the sector organisations LRN and NAG have submitted ten project proposals to the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, RVO. Royal NLR has played an essential role in that. Given the aim of improved sustainability in aviation, the sector wants to use these proposals to obtain access to the Mobility Fund. In concrete terms, the proposals range from applications of new lightweight materials and the use of digital techniques through to developing electrically powered flight and using greener aviation fuels.