Future Energy Global announced Oct. 13 that it has joined forces with 10 pioneering companies to launch a first-of-a-kind multiairline pilot program to acquire 20,000 metric tons (about 7 million gallons) of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) using the book-and-claim system.

The aviation industry has set a target of net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050, and SAF will be the biggest contributor to achieving this goal.

The SAF market is a nascent one, however, and fuel production and availability is still limited.

With this SAF book-and-claim pilot program, Future Energy Global said it “changes the game and demonstrates concretely” how to accelerate SAF availability.

DHL, JetBlue, SAS and three other global airlines, plus aviation-sustainability company 4AIR, are each purchasing from Future Energy Global the environmental attributes of SAF sourced by FEG from its portfolio of suppliers and certified to globally accepted ISCC CORSIA sustainability standards.

These airlines are joined by three corporate partners that are supporting the project by purchasing many of the scope 3 attributes from this SAF to compensate for their business-travel emissions.

According to Future Energy Global, this pathfinder project took months of preparation and saw FEG bringing together a coalition of multiple diverse stakeholders.

FEG aggregated demand from several airlines to give them access to a high-quality product, brought sustainability-conscious corporates on board, developed an accounting mechanism enabling airlines to transparently show their book-and-claim purchases in collaboration with a leading sustainability-standards organization, and sourced fuel from a range of suppliers.

“Scaling up SAF is urgent, and book and claim is a key enabler,” said Natasha Mann, CEO and co-founder of Future Energy Global. “We are honored to work with these aviation-sustainability leaders to showcase the potential of the book-and-claim system to accelerate emissions reduction.”

Book and claim is already well-established in other energy markets such as renewable electricity, and a wide range of aviation industry stakeholders support its broader adoption to speed up SAF production, FEG stated.

Under the book-and-claim system, the environmental benefits of SAF can be transferred separately from the actual fuel molecules.

This allows airlines that want to buy SAF to do so without the fuel having to be physically shipped to their location, saving cost and emissions, and also benefitting SAF producers that can now sell their product globally.

The system is based on robust independent registries that ensure there is no double-counting or double-claiming of environmental benefits.

The companies participating in this pilot have come together to demonstrate their commitment to cutting aviation emissions by scaling up SAF usage, and their support of the wider use of book and claim to do so, FEG stated.

“Book and claim is a critical tool in the early scale up of SAF in order to connect demand with supply, reduce cost and prevent extra emissions during distribution of the fuel,” said Kennedy Ricci, CEO of 4AIR. “4AIR is proud to support this pilot and demonstrate how book and claim can be done credibly, transparently and reliably at scale.”

Andreas Muendel, an executive with DHL, added, “Book and claim is a cornerstone for scaling the SAF market. It enables flexible purchasing independent of physical-supply routes while ensuring that the environmental benefits of SAF are credibly transferred to end customers through robust registry systems. DHL has long championed book and claim as a practical and transparent solution to accelerate aviation decarbonization. We are applying the book-and-claim principles developed by the book-and-claim community to ensure credible claims across global supply chains.”

Future Energy Global said its mission is to reduce global aviation emissions by scaling up SAF production through an innovative financial ecosystem that facilitates collaboration between all participants in the value chain.

FEG enters into long-term offtake agreements with SAF producers, provides accessible SAF solutions for airlines and corporates and enables investors and corporate stakeholders to accelerate the scale up of SAF production.