See how our community is using — and learning from — Cascade.
MEET CASCADE
The Boeing Cascade Climate Impact Model, or “Cascade” is a dynamic modeling tool that quantifies the power of aviation’s major strategies to cut emissions. Within the tool, you can explore different decarbonization pathways and even forecast how each can impact aviation emissions through 2050.
EXPLORE CASCADE
Latest Insights & Resources
Our Cascade User Community
With a unified commitment to reducing aviation’s net emissions, the Cascade User Community furthers the development and use of the Boeing Climate Impact Model, or “Cascade,” to enable data-driven sustainability analysis.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did Boeing develop Cascade?
To support the aerospace industry as it maps a path to net zero emissions, Boeing created Cascade, a data modeling and scenario analysis tool that quantifies the potential of decarbonization strategies to cut emissions, including fleet renewal, operational efficiency, renewable energy and future aircraft. The Cascade model allows the industry to visualize, for the first time, the total climate impact of each of our major paths to decarbonize aviation and to inform the most impactful and effective strategies to reach net zero by 2050.
Cascade accounts for the life cycle impact of renewable energy from the production, distribution, and use of alternative energy carriers including electricity, hydrogen, and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The tool was developed to collaborate with airline operators, industry partners, and policymakers to inform when, where, and how different fuel sources intersect with new airplane designs.
What data sources and models are you using?
Cascade uses traffic data from Cirium and FR24, aircraft performance models and fleet renewal strategies from Boeing, operational efficiency improvements derived from ICAO and IATA analysis, and renewable energy data from ICAO, GREET, NREL, and IEA forecasts.
What emissions are included in Cascade?
Cascade accounts for the lifecycle emissions of each fuel from “well-to-wake.” This includes the upstream emissions produced or sequestered during the production and distribution of the fuels used to power the aircraft, as well as the direct emissions produced by the aircraft due to combustion of the fuel. Cascade uses the definition of CO2-eq established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) based on a 100-year Global Warming Potential (GWP).
What type of capabilities are included in Cascade?
Within Cascade, you will find two modes with differing capabilities. The Explore Strategies mode enables a detailed analysis on the decarbonization strategies. This view provides analysis on a single point in time. The Forecast Scenarios mode projects impacts of selected decarbonization strategies out to 2050. This view allows detailed analysis of emission reductions over time.
What is the Cascade User Community?
The Cascade User Community is a small subset of Cascade users that are informing improvements to and providing strategic guidance on Cascade. By bringing together a variation of stakeholder groups, we will work to prioritize new features of Cascade to align with our community’s respective use cases.
To ensure that Cascade will be a relevant tool for sustainability decisions, we continue to meet these key strategic user groups to understand their use cases and integrate feedback for feature development.
Go deeper into the details of Cascade in our expanded FAQ.
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