Sustainable aviation fuel

The first test flight of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) on a commercial aircraft took place in 2008 and SAF was approved for use in aircraft operations in 2011. There has been considerable progress since then:

• Global SAF production has roughly doubled each year since 2018.
• Approximately 2.4 billion litres (1.92 million tonnes) of SAF was produced in 2025. This is almost double the 1.25 million litres (1 million tonnes) that was produced in 2024.
• SAF usage in 2025 represented 0.6% of the total fuel consumption by airlines, compared to 0.3% in 2024.
• 140 SAF projects are underway, by more than 100 producers spanning 31 countries (as at May 2026).
• SAF production capacity is expected to reach 22.5 billion litres (18 million tonnes) by 2030.¹

What is sustainable aviation fuel?

Sustainable aviation fuel - or SAF - is usually produced from sustainable biological feedstocks, waste materials, or via renewable synthetic fuel pathways. Rather than being made from fossil fuels, they are synthesised from a wide range of feedstocks such as waste oil and fats; municipal solid waste; cellulosic waste (such as corn stalks); cover crops such as camelina, carinata, and pennycress; non-biogenic alternative fuels; jatropha; halophytes and algae.

SAF is a safe replacement for conventional (fossil-based) jet fuel.  It is almost chemically identical but is generated from feedstocks that absorb CO₂ and provide a net reduction in CO₂ emissions when compared to fossil fuels.

Other sources can also be considered as sustainable, such as drawing CO₂ out of the atmosphere and using low-carbon electricity to make SAF.

Commercial flights are currently permitted to fly with a blend of up to 50% SAF and conventional fossil-based kerosene, to ensure compatibility with aircraft, engines and fuelling systems. The industry is working towards commercial aircraft being permitted to fly on 100% SAF in the near future.

Advantages of sustainable aviation fuel

Environmental benefits: SAF represents a huge opportunity for aviation to reduce its environmental impact. Today’s SAF can reduce CO₂ emissions by up to 80% over its lifecycle compared to conventional jet fuel, but with 100% possible in the future.

Research is also underway into fuels that could even have a negative emissions lifecycle, meaning that they absorb more CO₂ than they emit.

Diversified supply: SAF offers a viable alternative to conventional fossil-derived kerosene and can substitute traditional jet fuel with a more diverse geographical fuel supply through non-food crop sources.

A drop-in alternative: SAF uses the existing fuel supply and distribution infrastructure, ensuring the energy transition can take place faster compared to other options that would require a complete change to aviation’s systems and equipment.

Economic and social benefits: SAF could provide a solution to the volatile fuel costs that aviation is faced with. It can provide economic benefits to parts of the world (especially developing nations) that have land that is unviable for growing food crops but is suitable for sustainable aviation fuel feedstock growth.

Refining infrastructure is likely to be installed close to feedstock sources, generating additional jobs and economic activity. For many developing countries, SAF represents a significant economic and employment opportunity – it is estimated that the shift to SAF could result in up to 14 million jobs being created or transferred from the fossil fuel energy sector.

Key challenges to SAF deployment

The extensive commercial flights and testing of SAF in numerous demonstration flights has shown that the barriers to increased SAF deployment are economic and political, rather than technical.

These challenges include:

• ensuring an adequate supply of feedstock and low-carbon energy, enabling sufficient quantities of SAF to be produced to make them commercially viable
• ensuring that the cost of SAF is competitive, in order to compete with petroleum-based jet fuel
• ensuring that aviation receives an appropriate allocation, relative to other forms of transport, of available sustainable feedstocks
• ensuring that governments implement appropriate policy mechanisms to allow the SAF industry to scale up and deliver the economy of scale benefits, including incentivising the use of feedstocks for aviation as a priority over other sectors: the aviation industry is advocating for government support and investment to allow for the scale-up in supply of SAF, as a key element of the commitment to fly net zero
• availability of a skilled workforce capable of supporting the sector’s growth: there may be skills gaps; training and upskilling partnerships will be needed; there will be specialised roles and the need to expand the workforce
• reducing the risk for private investors, to enable greater investment in SAF and an increase in production.

Goal for fuel to be 5% less carbon intensive by 2030

At the third ICAO Conference on Aviation and Alternative Fuels (CAAF/3), governments from over 100 States, meeting with industry and civil society, set a goal for aviation fuel in 2030 to be 5% less carbon intensive, by transitioning to SAF and lower carbon aviation fuels. See ICAO CAAF/3. 

“Book and claim” – helping to scale up deployment

Book and claim is a mechanism that will help scale up SAF deployment efficiently, thereby accelerating the industry’s decarbonisation efforts. It will address the initial limited supply of SAF versus the growing demand and will enable airlines to purchase SAF without being geographically connected to a SAF supply site.

Before SAF becomes fully available globally, it will be more economically efficient to produce it in certain parts of the world. Airlines wishing to take part in the early adoption of SAF, therefore, may wish to support SAF production sites in different parts of the world even if they do not fly to those locations.

With book and claim, airlines can buy the SAF they need where it is most competitively produced and obtain the CO₂ emissions credits.  The SAF can be incorporated into the distribution systems of local airports located close to the SAF plant. Other airlines using that airport will use the physical SAF, but only the purchasing airline will receive the credit for having purchased it and supported the scaling up of SAF.

Sustainable aviation fuel and the pathway to net zero carbon emissions

In October 2021, the air transport industry committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. ATAG was instrumental in bringing the sector together to make the commitment and coordinated the signing of a declaration.

SAF has a very important role to play in the sector’s net zero goal.  This is explored in ATAG’s Waypoint 2050 report, which was the culmination of several years of work among experts, led by ATAG, to explore how a long-term climate goal for aviation could be reached.

ATAG also worked with the consultancy ICF to assess how aviation can deploy sufficient SAF to meet its climate ambitions. The findings were provided in the Fueling Net Zero report (2021).

Between 2024 and 2026, ATAG undertook a two-year analysis, working with 150 industry experts representing 45 companies throughout the aviation sector, of the progress towards net zero carbon emissions and the outlook for the future. The findings were published in Waypoint 2050 – 3rd edition, in January 2026. It concluded that the goal is still achievable, but only if the decarbonisation momentum is accelerated, with the period up to 2030 being critical. 

Waypoint 2050 reconfirmed the vital role of SAF in aviation’s decarbonisation. It estimated that SAF will contribute between 38% and 58% of the emissions reductions needed to get to net zero by 2050. Up to 500 million tonnes of SAF will be required each year by 2050.

Achieving production levels of this scale will require a huge transition, involving new jobs and skills to run the thousands of new refineries that will be necessary and to retrofit existing ones. Cost estimates of this transition range from $1.2 trillion to 4.3 trillion, for the period 2024 to 2050.

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¹Data from ATAG's Waypoint 2050 report, 3rd edition, 2026