\9posted 06th September 2026)
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is expected to deliver around 65% of the emissions reductions needed by 2050 to achieve the airline industry’s net-zero goal. Despite its critical role, SAF supply remains constrained, concentrated in a few locations, and costs 2 to 5 times more than conventional aviation fuel (CAF). A pragmatic solution is to decouple the physical fuel from its environmental attributes (EAs), allowing airlines and their customers to claim SAF-use regardless of where the fuel is produced, delivered, or consumed. For example, an airline in Asia can pay for and claim the EAs of a particular batch of SAF that might be produced and uplifted in the United States. This approach is known as book-and-claim.
The integrity of book-and-claim requires the EAs linked to a specific SAF batch to be tracked transparently after they are split from the physical fuel so that they are counted and claimed only once. SAF registries, such as the CADO SAF Registry, provide this tracking and accounting mechanism.
In a typical book-and-claim transaction, the registry becomes involved after the SAF has been blended with CAF and delivered to a point of no return, such as an airport fuel farm, available for uplift by any airline. The supplier surrenders the sustainability documentation to the registry and transfers the associated EAs through the registry to the purchasing airline, which redeems them, i.e., burns them virtually. The registry issues a certificate proving the airline’s ownership of the EAs and right to claim against them. Any airline customers involved in the transaction also receive a certificate to substantiate their emissions reporting.
In this way, book-and-claim helps the global SAF market to leapfrog local physical supply constraints and immature supply chains. This gives producers access to more airlines and more airlines gain access to SAF, increasing competition, and lowering costs. This is key to accelerating the decarbonization of air transport and building this new energy market faster. Regulators can provide this instrumental support by the stroke of the pen, including under the EU ETS, and help expand the SAF market and attract investors.
