Airbus has launched a new initiative to help its customers boost the adoption of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) through a new approach to book-and-claim transactions. During its Airbus Summit event in Toulouse on Tuesday, the airframer announced that it has started purchasing SAF certificates for resale to customers, taking on the management of the associated sustainability attributes through the registry of the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) certification body.

Several companies have signed memoranda of understanding to participate in the new program, which Airbus’ chief sustainability officer, Julie Kitcher, told journalists would make SAF adoption more flexible and scalable, in the process stimulating demand. These customers include leasing groups SMBC Aviation Capital and AeroCap, business aircraft operators Comlux and Luxaviation, and Novespace, Rive Private Investment, and SAF Aerogroup.

According to Kitcher, expanding the use of book-and-claim transactions is one of several measures needed to avoid inadequate SAF supplies impeding uptake of the fuel. Through its work with RSB, Airbus is aiming to aggregate demand and make the process more straightforward for aircraft owners and operators. Last year, 18% of the fuel Airbus used for airliner test flights and its Beluga heavylift aircraft was SAF.

RSB’s executive director, Elena Schmidt, said the SAF industry needs standardization in an environment where “everyone is in a hurry, but not necessarily going in the right direction.” Her organization has published a manual offering “a compass” as to how to build a credible book-and-claim system.

Gabrielle Walker, co-founder and chief scientist with carbon technology start-up Cur8, told the Summit that the air transport industry needs to combine SAF adoption with carbon removal processes. “If you are trying to get to net-zero carbon, you can stop putting carbon in [to the environment] and you can take it out,” she said. “Both carbon removal and SAF are needed, and both can be around 20% to 30% of the answer [for achieving net zero], so it’s not a case of either/or.”

British Airways has signed an agreement with Cur8 that has made it the largest airline purchaser of carbon removal credits. “If you engage with carbon removal now, you can get favored prices and the first right of refusal,” Walker stated. “Engaging with this now with governments is important because it gives you credibility for the compliance that is coming. We want to have interim carbon removal targets for 2030.”