DHL Express, Cosmo Oil Marketing sign deal to drive further use of SAF in Japan

Photo: DHL Express

DHL Express announced Jan. 28 that it has signed a deal with Cosmo Oil Marketing Co. Ltd. for the purchase of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to drive emission-reduced air freight in Japan.

The deal represents an annual purchase of 7.2 million liters (1.9 million gallons) of SAF, which DHL Express will use for its regular cargo-shipping services starting in April, marking the first such initiative for the international express industry in Asia, according to DHL.

This agreement marks a major contract for SAF produced in Japan by Saffaire Sky Energy LLC, a subsidiary of Cosmo Energy Holdings. 

The company will produce SAF at its mass production facility, scheduled to begin operations this year.

With this deal, DHL Express will secure a stable SAF supply and accelerate efforts to promote sustainable air-cargo transport in Japan.

“We are pleased that, through our agreement with Cosmo Oil Marketing, we will be the first international express provider in Japan to use the locally produced SAF on scheduled regular cargo flights,” said Tony Khan, the president and representative director of DHL Express Japan. “SAF is currently the most effective solution for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in air transport. Moving forward, as part of our responsibility to customers in Japan, we are committed to promoting emission-reduced shipping solutions and contributing to the reduction of the transport sector’s environmental impact.”

Koji Moriyama, the president, representative director and CEO of Cosmo Oil Marketing, added, “We are delighted to contribute to the decarbonization efforts of DHL Express and its customers through SAF, one of our key decarbonization products. SAF plays an essential role in the decarbonization of the aviation industry, and we are excited to be part of this important initiative. Moving forward, we will continue to support the realization of a decarbonized society, starting with this collaboration, by promoting the use of SAF.”

DHL Express currently accepts SAF at airports around the world including Amsterdam Schiphol (Netherlands), Stockholm Arlanda Airport (Sweden), Brussels Airport (Belgium), East Midlands Airport (U.K.), Los Angeles International Airport (U.S.), Leipzig Airport (Germany), Miami International Airport (U.S.), San Francisco International Airport (U.S.), and Stansted Airport (U.K.).

The SAF fuel procured under this agreement will be delivered to Central Japan International Airport (Nagoya Airport), which will be the first airport to take SAF in Asia among more than 500 airports used in the DHL Express global network, according to DHL.

DHL Express has been offering GoGreen Plus, the industry’s first international shipping service that enables customers to reduce (in-set) their scope 3 greenhouse-gas emissions using SAF, since 2022.

The SAF used in GoGreen Plus is procured based on some of the industry’s largest-scale contracts, such as the agreements that DHL Express has concluded with BP (U.K.) and Neste (Finland) in 2022, and with World Energy (U.S.) in 2023.

With Cosmo Oil Marketing in Japan now joining the SAF-procurement network for DHL’s air network, an additional pioneering step of this deal is that the SAF environmental attributes will be transferred via the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification Credit Transfer System for SAF.

This will ensure credible and transparent environmental claims along the value chain, from Cosmo Energy Group as the SAF producer, to DHL as the airline using the fuel and from there to DHL customers using the GoGreen Plus emission-reduced transport service.

One of the features of GoGreen Plus is that, with the book-and-claim system, GoGreen Plus users around the world can realize the benefits of SAF regardless of where it is procured or which aircraft it is loaded onto.