Australia’s national science agency CSIRO works with Boeing to create SAF roadmap

Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, and Boeing Australia have partnered to deliver a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) Roadmap to assist in decarbonizing the aviation industry, which contributes 2.5 percent of the world’s total carbon-dioxide emissions.

The SAF Roadmap, due to be released later this year, aims to build consensus on how to develop Australia’s SAF industry within an Asia-Pacific context.

It will inform industry and policy, including the Australian government’s Jet Zero Council mandate to reduce aviation emissions.

CSIRO senior manager and lead Roadmap author, Max Temminghoff, addressed the Australian International Airshow March 2 on Australia’s SAF opportunity.

“The roadmap will identify opportunities to produce, scale and meet demand for feedstocks required to establish a sustainable aviation fuel industry in the Asia-Pacific region,” Temminghoff said. The roadmap is being developed in consultation with government, defense and industry experts and will chart a path for creating a sustainable aviation fuel industry here in Australia. Emerging themes such as the need to improve SAF literacy suggest an opportunity to raise levels of communication, transparency and ongoing assurance of the fuel’s sustainability.”

Boeing and CSIRO have a 34-year collaboration on joint-research projects, which has led to significant aerospace advances.

Heidi Hauf, Boeing’s regional sustainability lead in the Asia-Pacific region said the roadmap reflects their support of the aviation industry’s goal to achieve net zero-carbon emissions by 2050.

“SAF is proven and used daily around the world in more than a quarter-million flights and widely accepted as a drop-in replacement for conventional jet fuel,” Hauf said. “It offers the largest potential to reduce carbon emissions in all aviation sectors, so finding out how to harness the economic and environmental benefits afforded by SAF is a meaningful jump forward for the region.”

The roadmap findings and recommendations from this analysis will be made available by mid-2023.