Getting SAF off the ground

Stephen Land, North-West Europe Lead, Exolum, explains why aviation is facing one of the greatest challenges in its history: its decarbonisation.
Against this backdrop, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is emerging as the most immediate and viable solution for reducing the sector's net emissions.
But while the focus is often on SAF production, its take-off requires logistics infrastructure capable of connecting markets, scaling volumes and facilitating competitive access to the product. That is why the role of logistics companies such as Exolum is so important.
Currently, less than 1% of the aviation fuel consumed worldwide is SAF. This low figure is not solely due to a lack of production, but also to the fragmentation of the supply chain, the geographical dispersion of production plants and the lack of adequate infrastructure for transport, storage and distribution on a large scale.
To get the volumes of SAF that sustainable flight will need, we need to consider three key factors in its supply, and the importance of logistics related to that.
First, is that it will need to be produced from different raw materials — organic waste, used oils,...