New alliance to promote benefits of SAF

RMI and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) have launched the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA).
This initiative is supported by founding companies Boeing, BCG, Deloitte, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, Netflix and Salesforce.
SABA’s mission is to accelerate the path to net zero aviation by driving investment in high quality sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), catalysing new SAF production and technological innovation and supporting member engagement in policy-making.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, demand for jet fuel could reach double pre-pandemic levels by 2050.
“The Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance adds momentum to existing airline-company partnerships that support the purchase of sustainable aviation fuels,” said Kelley Kizzier, vice president of the Global Climate program at EDF.
“SABA will build on the work of these early movers, many of whom seek a more scalable, standardised approach, by establishing a SAF certificate system with robust environmental criteria.
“Working with sustainability certification schemes, this system will verify and track emission reductions from SAF so that companies, organizations and even individual travellers can achieve their ambitious climate goals.”
SABA is one piece of a much broader global effort to decarbonize aviation. The environmental community and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and its members have been championing the role of SAF for over a decade.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the World Economic Forum’s Clean Skies for Tomorrow coalition incubated many of the concepts SABA now takes forward to implementation.
“We are excited to work with the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance and like-minded initiatives to develop the SAF certificate registry system, which will help make robust SAF certificates a reality for the broader community Clean Skies has worked so hard to build,” said Christoph Wolff, global head of mobility at the World Economic Forum.
“SABA will build on the strong foundation of these global efforts, and develop a system that enables SAF to grow at the same pace and scale that renewable electricity grew over the last decade,” added Ned Harvey, managing director of climate intelligence at RMI. “The benefits of investing in SAF will go beyond the aviation sector, creating vast new clean energy jobs and new, sustainable revenue sources for farmers and tech innovators.”