As aerospace manufacturers race toward net-zero targets, one thing is clear: sustainability has moved from the margins to the mission. No longer a compliance box or PR talking point, the need to decarbonize is reshaping engineering, operations, and supply chains across both commercial aviation and defense.
To understand how the industry is adapting, I sat down with PTC’s Vice President of Sustainability, Dave Duncan, to discuss the realities of aerospace decarbonization. Duncan, who has spent decades advising aerospace and industrial leaders on digital transformation, now leads PTC’s sustainability strategy, helping aerospace OEMs and defense agencies apply intelligent product lifecycle technologies to reduce emissions, improve efficiency, and strengthen resilience.
Q: Dave, the aerospace sector has made some bold sustainability commitments. What’s driving this acceleration toward decarbonization?
If you look at aerospace, it’s always been a sector defined by innovation, from jet propulsion to fly-by-wire systems to composite airframes. What’s happening now is another inflection point, but this time it’s innovation in service of sustainability.
There are three main drivers. First, societal and investor pressure. Airlines are under the microscope. Movements like Flyskam (“flight shame”) are influencing travel behavior. Governments are introducing carbon taxes and banning short-haul flights where train options exist.
Second, regulation. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Digital Product Passport (DPP) frameworks are forcing manufacturers to quantify environmental impact down to the component level.
And third, economics. Decarbonization is both ethical and profitable. Reducing fuel burn, optimizing maintenance, and extending aircraft life all improve margins.
Q: Where do you see the biggest challenges for aerospace companies trying to achieve net-zero by 2050?
Aircraft lifecycles are incredibly long. If you’re designing a new jet engine or airframe today, it might not enter production until the 2030s, and it’ll still be flying in the 2060s. That means we essentially have one product generation left to figure out 2050 net zero.
Then there’s the scale issue. Sustainable aviation fuel is a great bridge technology. It can cut emissions by up to 80%, but it currently represents less than 1% of global jet fuel consumption. The feedstock supply simply isn’t there yet. Hydrogen and electric propulsion are promising for short-haul and regional aircraft, but not for intercontinental routes.
So, the near-term path to meaningful decarbonization lies in product design and lifecycle intelligence. Activities like lightweighting, material selection, and service optimization can deliver double-digit footprint reductions without waiting for new fuel chemistries to scale.
Q: You mentioned design and lifecycle intelligence. How does PTC’s technology provide intelligence that supports decarbonization?
We call it the Intelligent Product Lifecycle. Essentially, connecting every phase of the product’s life through a digital thread that makes environmental impact measurable and actionable.
For example, Windchill’s integration with Makersite allows engineers to run automated life cycle assessments (LCAs) directly from their digital bill of materials. They can instantly see the CO₂ impact of a material or supplier choice, rather than waiting weeks for an external analysis. That’s a game changer, being able to embed sustainability “early and often” in the design process.
We’re also supporting customers in deploying Digital Product Passports that capture and connect environmental and social performance data throughout the entire lifecycle, from as-designed to as-serviced. These passports will help companies establish a foundation for circularity by providing full transparency into material origins, usage, and opportunities for reuse or recovery.
Q: What enhancements have been made in Windchill to support material transparency?
With Windchill 13, we’ve made material management a first-class citizen in the PLM ecosystem. The material management tools now link directly to bills of materials, CAD models, and product structures, giving engineers and sustainability teams real-time visibility into the materials being specified, used and tracked across the lifecycle. Windchill’s new “BOM Roll-up” capability lets you aggregate material-attributes such as weight, cost, or compliance across an entire assembly at design time, so you can immediately see the impact of material or supplier changes.
In practical terms, that means engineers can ask questions like: ‘If we swap this aluminum alloy for a lighter composite, what’s the delta on mass, on embodied carbon, on reuse potential?’ They make smarter sourcing and design decisions because the system now surfaces these attributes earlier and embeds them in the digital thread. On top of that, you can follow the usage of material usage just in design, but into manufacturing, service and eventually end-of-life. That level of transparency is critical for sustainability, compliance and lifecycle optimization.
Q: How does managing material data in Windchill help aerospace organizations with reducing their footprint and improving circularity?
In aerospace you deal with long lifecycles, complex structures, and high-value materials. The ability to optimize material usage is a major lever for improving both cost and sustainability.
The latest Windchill updates provide the tools that aerospace engineers need to make smarter, more sustainable choices from the start. You can see material impacts earlier in the design process, which helps to cut down on scrap and avoid over-specifying parts. It’s easier than ever to trace materials and suppliers, so you always know what’s being used, where it’s going, and how it can be reused or recycled at the end of its life. Connected material data also means less risk of non-compliance and more confidence in your decisions. And because attributes like weight, cost, embodied carbon, and material origin are all visible and reportable, you can make more informed decisions across the entire product lifecycle.
So what you get is a system-level view of material usage, not just part-by-part. That means you can optimize across design variants, across service fleets, across supply chains, to ultimately, reduce your product footprint.
Q: Defense organizations are also starting to integrate sustainability into their missions. How is decarbonization different in that context?
Defense has its own sustainability calculus. It’s less about public image and more about resilience and readiness.
A lot of defense agencies are discovering that electrified or hybridized ground equipment isn’t only cleaner, it’s also tactically superior because it reduces the need for vulnerable fuel convoys and lowers noise and heat signatures.
There’s also a critical materials issue. Defense electronics rely on rare earth elements, and access to those minerals is increasingly constrained. That’s making circular design and remanufacturing essential for security, not just sustainability.
Q: What are the most promising opportunities for aerospace and defense to decarbonize over the next five years?
The biggest opportunity is to use digital transformation as a decarbonization accelerator. The same data infrastructures we built for productivity with PLM, IoT, and digital twins can now be extended to track and reduce emissions.
I see three areas where leaders can get ahead:
- Lifecycle Carbon Intelligence – Using digital twins to simulate and optimize emissions across design, production, and operation.
- Circular Supply Chains – Designing for reuse, remanufacture, and material recovery.
- Performance-Based Sustainability – Shifting outcome-based contracts (“power by the hour”) and aligning revenue with uptime and efficiency instead of throughput.
As sustainability regulations mature, digital traceability will be as important as airworthiness. Companies that embed these capabilities now will have a massive competitive advantage.
Q: Finally, what advice would you give to aerospace business leaders navigating this transition?
Start integrating sustainability into your core business systems, not as a side project or CSR initiative, but as part of how you design and operate.
Do you know the carbon footprint of every product variant? Are your suppliers aligned with your emissions targets? Can you connect your design and service data to measure improvement over time?
If the answer to any of those is “no,” you’re not ready for what’s coming, because regulators, investors, and customers will all expect “yes.”
And finally, empower your engineers. Give them tools that make sustainability intuitive. If they can see the impact of every choice in real time, they’ll make better ones.
The takeaway
The aerospace and defense industry faces unique decarbonization challenges, but it also has an unmatched capability for innovation. As Duncan notes, the next generation of aircraft being designed today will define whether the industry meets its goal of achieving net-zero by 2050. By connecting sustainability to digital engineering, lifecycle intelligence, and service optimization, aerospace manufacturers can turn a planetary imperative into a business advantage.
About Dave Duncan
Dave Duncan is Vice President of Sustainability and Analyst Relations at PTC, where he leads the company’s global sustainability strategy across product lifecycle management, service intelligence, and digital transformation. He has over 25 years of experience helping industrial and aerospace enterprises accelerate innovation through technology.
Product Sustainability for Dummies, compliments of PTC
Authored by PTC’s Dave Duncan, Product Sustainability for Dummies guides discrete manufacturers through how to reduce product footprints and boost profitability while leading the way to a more sustainable future.
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