Corporate members of the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA) have committed to purchasing sustainable aviation fuel certificates (SAFc) for nearly 50 million gallons of SAF, with an investment value of close to $200 million. The multi-year collection of deals, which involves 20 corporate customers, four fuel providers and three airlines, has the potential to reduce around 500,000 tons of CO2e. Purchasing SAF certificates enables corporate travellers to invest in SAF and capture the environmental benefits, allowing them to make GHG emissions reduction claims on their climate disclosures, while the physical SAF flows to an aircraft operator. SABA is working with airline partners Alaska, JetBlue and Southwest, securing certificates through SkyNRG and purchasing directly from fuel providers including World Energy.

“Creating an ecosystem that equips companies from all economic sectors to access more SAF is part of our mission,” said Adam Klauber, VP Sustainability and Digital Supply Chain at World Energy, the world’s first commercial-scale SAF producer. “We are proud to collaborate to help Scope 3 customers achieve their net zero goals and dramatically increase SAF production with these long-term contracts.”

SABA said multi-year deals were essential in driving scale in the SAF market as long-term certainty about demand helped fuel producers secure financing for their projects and so bring more SAF to market.

“SABA plays a critical role in helping companies identify and purchase the highest-integrity sustainable aviation fuels to accelerate progress towards net zero goals,” said Elizabeth Sturcken, Managing Director at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which co-founded the alliance.

Different fuel types are being purchased through the set of agreements, including power-to-liquids, or e-fuels, produced from renewable electricity and CO2 by startup Twelve, and offered in partnership with Alaska.

As global demand for aviation and SAF grows, partners like SABA will be increasingly crucial to bring the full range of aviation stakeholders to the table,” said Nicholas Flanders, co-founder and CEO of Twelve. “Innovative power-to-liquid fuels will deliver deeper emissions reductions but need the support of airlines and corporations in order to scale. We’re proud to join with SABA and its collective of forward-minded corporate customers, airlines and fellow fuel providers to deliver E-Jet fuel and help pioneer the market for high-integrity SAF certificates.”

The new RFP multi-year purchase follows a pilot SAFc procurement for nearly 850,000 gallons of SAF last year. By expanding the process to include multiple fuel providers and airlines, customers are able to invest in a range of fuel types and help bring new technologies to market, said SABA.

“As we continue to optimise our business travel emissions, we recognise the crucial role that lower carbon air travel plays in meeting global climate targets,” commented David Webb, Chief Sustainability Officer of BCG, a SABA member. “The SAF industry is rapidly evolving and we are enthusiastic about its potential to scale and support a more sustainable, global economy.”

EDF and SABA’s other co-founder, RMI, have developed the digital SAFc Registry that was launched during COP28 in Dubai last December, which is being used as the central platform to record the certificates purchased through the RFP. Building on industry best practices, the registry creates an auditable ledger to ensure the certificates realise their intended environmental impact and can be claimed towards emissions reduction goals.

“The SAFc Registry plays a critical role in the SAF ecosystem by bringing greater consistency and transparency to SAFc transactions, building trust along the SAF value chain and helping send a strong demand signal for the low-carbon fuels needed to decarbonise the aviation sector,” said Bryan Fisher, Managing Director at clean energy non-profit RMI.

Plans for a new collective procurement process are underway, although SABA cautioned available SAF volumes that met its requirements “came nowhere close” to meeting the full demand from its customers in 2024 and 2025.

“The only way to drive structural change in hard-to-abate sectors like aviation is to shake up existing business models,” said Kim Carnahan, Head of SABA’s Secretariat and CEO of Neoteric Energy and Climate. “The recent announcement from the Science Based Targets initiative opening the door to the use of market-based approaches to address Scope 3 emissions only elevates the importance of SABA’s book-and-claim system as an innovative and environmentally robust avenue for customers to drive aviation decarbonisation.”

SABA is hosting a webinar on May 1 that will discuss the latest multi-year RFP SAFc procurement. Details here

Photo: Alaska Airlines

Christopher Surgenor

Editor

• Linkedin

The United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund, which was launched five months ago with more than $100 million in investments from United and five partners, has increased in size to $200 million with the addition of eight new partners: American Express Global Business Travel, Aramco Ventures, Aviation Capital Group, Bank of America, Boston Consulting Group, Groupe ADP, Hawaiian Airlines and JetBlue Ventures. The fund is a way for companies and consumers to come together and increase the supply of sustainable aviation fuel through the support of startups. The new corporate members join inaugural partners Air Canada, Boeing, GE Aerospace, JPMorgan Chase and Honeywell. United’s customers also have the option to contribute to supplement the airline’s investment in the fund when they book flights and since the fund launched, more than 60,000 customers have contributed over $200,000. To date, United has invested in the future production of over five billion gallons of SAF – the most of any airline in the world, it says, with existing investments moved into the new fund.

“While United can’t decarbonise the airline industry alone, we can use our leadership and credibility in this space to rally other to join us,” said Michael Leskinen, President of United Airlines Ventures, with the airline saying it will continue to recruit corporations across industries to join the fund and will prioritise investment in new technology, advanced fuel sources and proven producers in order to help scale the supply of SAF. Partners also have the potential to gain preferential access to environmental attributes associated with United’s future supply of SAF.

“As companies across the globe are increasingly looking for ways to reduce their environmental impact from flying, the UAV Sustainable Flight Fund presents a unique opportunity,” Leskinen added. “Instead of fighting over the current limited supply of SAF, with our partners, we’re working collaboratively to help scale the SAF industry itself, and to get an equity stake in groundbreaking technology while doing it.”

Through the fund, United intends to invest in a variety of SAF feedstocks and technologies. In the past two years, UAV has made investments in or signed purchase agreements with companies using a variety of ingredients and technologies to produce SAF, including feedstocks like ethanol, animal byproducts, forestry and crop waste, and municipal waste. This is in addition to early-stage, promising technologies such as synthetic biology and power-to-liquids, incorporating renewable power, hydrogen and carbon capture processes.

SAF companies to date receiving investment from UAV include Alder Fuels, Cemvita, Dimensional Energy, Fulcrum BioEnergy, Next Renewable Fuels, Svante and Viridos.

Following an investment in sodium-ion battery-maker Natron Energy, UAV this month announced another electric battery investment, this time with Electric Power Systems, a company producing battery technology that can potentially be used for a broad suite of aerospace applications. Rather than producing battery cells, the company says its compatible module technology can be adapted to support a variety of batteries, that could allow United to consider its modules for a number of near-term applications. EPS aims to provide a whole battery ‘ecosystem’ for aviation, from the packs on aircraft to charging stations on the ground.

United is exploring options to move its pilot training academy, Aviate, away from internal combustion-powered training aircraft to electric ones. EPS says its powertrain could serve as the core propulsion system for a family of future electric aircraft concepts, starting with an electric trainer and scaling to larger variants as technology advances. Additionally, United has more than 12,000 pieces of motorised ground equipment across its operations, of which about one third are currently electric, and EPS’s battery modules could potentially be deployed in support of several uses.

Photo: United Airlines

Christopher Surgenor

Editor

• Linkedin

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has announced an eight-year partnership with SkyNRG to purchase sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for its business travel flights starting in 2022, so becoming the newest member of SkyNRG’s Board Now corporate programme. The move is in support of BCG’s commitment to achieving net zero climate impact by 2030 at the latest, with more than 80% of the organisation’s carbon footprint attributable to business travel. SkyNRG says the long-term agreement will support the development of a new SAF production facility in the Netherlands, which will produce 100,000 tonnes of SAF annually from sustainable sources such as waste oils when it eventually comes onstream, with BCG committing to purchasing existing supplies in the meantime. BCG joins Microsoft, SkyScanner, PwC and others as Board Now programme Leader – the highest membership level. It also recently joined the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA) as a founding member.

“Lower-carbon air travel is a vital part of achieving our net zero goal, as well as the global climate targets. This partnership with SkyNRG will help to develop the global market for more affordable sustainable aviation fuel,” said Rich Lesser, CEO of BCG.

Both BCG and SkyNRG have participated in the World Economic Forum-led Clean Skies for Tomorrow (CST) coalition since 2019. SkyNRG is also part of WEF’s SAF Certificate (SAFc) pilot, which is aiming to develop a globally recognised accounting system for SAF (see article).

“It is great to see that BCG is at the forefront of making the aviation industry more sustainable as a member of our Board Now SAF programme,” said SkyNRG Managing Director Theye Veen. “With this long-term partnership, BCG enables the acceleration of the sustainable aviation industry, bringing us one step closer to making SAF the global standard in aviation.”

In June, BCG entered into an agreement with Neste for the purchase of SAF to be delivered to airlines SAS and Finnair, covering the volume of all flights taken by BCG employees in the Nordic region with these carriers. BCG is Neste’s first corporate client for its SAF-based solution in which Neste and its airline partners help organisations reach their emission reduction targets, and includes a third-party audit process to ensure other customers cannot claim emission reductions on the same SAF volume.

“The core value proposition of BCG is to connect our clients with the best global expertise and talent, whatever the business issue at hand might be. Next generation ways of working have opened up tremendous opportunities to accomplish this virtually. Yet some travel will be needed going forward in order to deliver the greatest value to our clients,” said Tuukka Seppä, Managing Partner of BCG Nordics. “This move is part of BCG’s global efforts to advance the path to lower-carbon travel and is an important step on our journey to net zero climate impact by 2030.”

BCG is the Consultancy Partner for the COP26 climate conference in November and has expanded its climate and sustainability capabilities by transforming its former Center for Climate Action into a global BCG Center for Climate & Sustainability, which brings together over 550 experts from across the firm.

In other SkyNRG news, the company is to partner with Dutch festival brand DGTL that will ensure all artists travelling to and from its international events by air will have their flight CO2 emissions reduced through SAF purchase.

“Working with SkyNRG, DGTL’s sustainability model once again provides a groundbreaking blueprint for other promoters and large-scale event organisers,” said DGTL, which claims to have solved other event sustainability issues around energy, water and sanitation. “This innovation is the final piece in DGTL’s overall sustainability puzzle. Furthermore, it is a scalable solution that can reduce air travel emissions for other events too where air travel may be unavoidable. DGTL’s festivals have a huge reach, which is why it is important we lead by example and plant the seed for change.”