Role
Timeline
Nov 2021 - Apr 2022
Industry
Sustainability &
Aviation
Team
me +
6 founding team members
1 Venture Lead
2 CX Researchers
Overview —
The aviation industry faces immense pressure to decarbonise, yet the transition to Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) remains slow due to high production costs, uncertain demand, and a fragmented supply chain. SAF has the potential to reduce emissions by up to 80%, but adoption is hindered by complex investment structures, inconsistent regulatory incentives, and a lack of transparent emissions tracking.
Our team was tasked with domain exploration and ecosystem mapping to identify the most promising, market-ready opportunities for our client's venture building arm — and to help improve internal venture building processes. After evaluating multiple domains (including space tech), the board and key stakeholders chose to focus on Sustainable Aviation Fuel enablement. We then mapped the entire aviation fuel ecosystem, analysed market barriers, and validated opportunities with key players.
I led design research and experience design for what we called the Bluebird initiative — a project aimed at catalysing the production of SAF to decarbonise aviation faster. Our work shaped the conceptualisation and validation of an end-to-end solution designed to aggregate demand for SAF, de-risk investments for corporates, and streamline long-term offtake agreements across the fragmented ecosystem. This project not only produced a validated market entry strategy and implementation roadmap but also positioned Airbus as a trusted ecosystem creator in a nascent market.
I led research and design for our client’s SAF initiative, driving the conceptualisation and validation of a platform to accelerate sustainable aviation fuel adoption. Through deep stakeholder engagement and market analysis, we identified key adoption barriers and designed a solution that simplifies investment decisions, builds confidence, and connects key industry players. The result was a validated market entry strategy and implementation roadmap, positioning this as our client’s "most impactful innovation project in 20 years".
The team was tasked with exploring and identifying promising market opportunities, which included carbon capture and storage (CCS), Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), and even Space-based Solar Power, ultimately focusing on SAF enablement.
The solution generated significant interest, with 32 pilot interests from various stakeholders. While the project was eventually halted due to reasons outside of our control, it was recognised by some as one of the most impactful innovation projects in the company's 20-year history.
The Challenge —
To understand the barriers to SAF adoption, we conducted an extensive research phase, engaging with over 210 stakeholders, including:
• Corporate sustainability managers tasked with reducing aviation emissions
• Experts in SAF production, investment, and regulation
• Airline procurement managers responsible for fuel sourcing
Our research surfaced four critical industry pain points:
Lack of confidence in SAF production – Buyers fear inconsistent supply and quality issues
Complex investment decisions – SAF producers struggle to secure long-term funding due to unclear demand
Fragmented stakeholder landscape – Airlines, fuel producers, and corporate buyers operate in silos, making collaboration difficult
Emissions tracking & reporting challenges – Companies lack a standardised way to verify SAF’s sustainability impact
Through ecosystem mapping, we uncovered a €10.2B SAF market opportunity by 2030, but the “chicken-and-egg” dilemma persisted: buyers wouldn’t commit without reliable supply, and producers couldn’t scale without secure investments.
These insights shaped our approach to designing a scalable digital solution that would simplify transactions, align incentives, and create transparency in the SAF ecosystem.
Key Design Decisions —
🎯 Role-based insights
We discovered through our research that project directors, site managers, and executives all needed different lenses on the same project data. I designed a customisable KPI Library system that could serve each role's unique needs while maintaining data consistency - an essential requirement when dealing with high-stakes construction decisions.
🤖 Trust-building automation
One of the bigger design challenges was introducing automation to an industry that’s still heavily reliant on Excel and paper reports. I approached this by first automating their most time-consuming tasks, then designing easy and transparent ways to showing the AI's reasoning and manually verify data. This progressive disclosure approach will help build trust and keep users in control of critical decisions that could impact multi-million dollar projects.
🔐 Complex permissions architecture
With the complex ecosystem of players within a given construction project, it was an intricate challenge of designing permissions across that ecosystem. I carefully mapped user journeys and hierarchies, to ensure executives could access high-level insights and confidential information while project managers could work with detailed site information, all within the same platform.
💡 Intuitive yet approachable AI
While AI adoption still varies widely across industries, the construction sector can be particularly hesitant to embrace new technologies. For the AI copilot feature, I wanted to experiment beyond traditional chatbot interfaces while still maintaining familiar interactions. I incorporated example prompts and a prompt library into the experience to ease skepticism and demonstrate the system's potential.
Get instant insights with the AI copilot and prompt library
Create forecasts for project completion and get ahead of delays
Choose which data you see and how you prefer to see it
Get alerted to patterns and verify with remote monitoring
Learnings —
Challenging Initial Assumptions → Pivoting from a top-down, nice-to-have solution ("build it and they will come") to a user-centric platform that tackled real pain points ("meet them where they are") was key to driving customer adoption and building positive sentiment.
Iterate, Test, Iterate Again → Iteration was at the heart of our process—we tested every aspect of the product, from AI feasibility to workflow integrations with dummy data, and refined at every stage. We never sacrificed quality for speed but knew what the right balance was, when.
Building User Trust → Trust is earned, not given. Demonstrating the platform’s value through small wins early on was critical to gaining customer confidence and stakeholder buy-in.