Like a jet waiting interminably for clearance to take off, the effort to make air travel more sustainable is stuck on the tarmac, even as a viable solution is ready to clear the runway. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), made from a range of feedstocks that include used cooking oil, agricultural and forestry residue, municipal solid waste, and even carbon dioxide in the air, can dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is widely acknowledged to be today’s most practical approach to making aviation more sustainable, particularly for medium to long-haul travel. Yet even as the aviation industry and governments have set an aspirational goal of achieving net zero carbon in just 25 years, SAF currently accounts for less than one percent of global fuel consumption and our research shows more than one-third of airlines are not using SAF, with many having no plans to do so. Notably, U.S. airlines lag behind European airlines in SAF usage.
The primary barrier is cost. Because SAF is more expensive to produce than traditional jet fuel, all parties are hesitant to commit—airlines to buy in bulk on long-term contracts, fuel companies to produce, and investors to put up necessary capital.
For the SAF business to get off the ground, all of these players must collaborate to reduce costs across the entire value chain, from feedstock sourcing and transport to refining, blending, and distribution. This kind of unified effort is what’s required to make SAF thrive since government incentives and mandates that have supported development of the SAF industry can’t make it financially sustainable.
Sound impossible? It’s not. The Minnesota SAF Hub is working to make SAF a viable option by supporting an integrated value chain, bringing in corporate investment, state tax credits, and infrastructure incentives, with plans to produce one billion gallons of sustainable fuel a year for Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and the Boston area’s Massport are pursuing similar alliances.
Airports have historically stayed on the sidelines of fueling operations but can no longer afford to remain passive observers. Engaging early and deeply across the entire SAF value chain is vital, for example, working with local authorities and legislators to open up their aviation fuel markets. Closed access models at some airports restrict fuel supply to the owners of the fuel facility. This reduces supplier diversity, limits airline choice, and can inflate fuel prices. Airports such as Hong Kong International Airport, where any qualified supplier can provide jet fuel, demonstrate successful open access implementation.
Airlines can engage more proactively with fuel suppliers to aggregate demand, negotiate better pricing, and reassure producers of strong and stable demand for SAF. Long-term agreements that include flexible terms can further provide the certainty producers need to scale capacity and attract financing. Airlines also need to engage with passengers so that they understand the benefits of flying with SAF, and to encourage their participation by offering them the opportunity to buy SAF certificates.
Some European airlines are partnering with SAF companies. British Airways parent International Airlines Group is invested in LanzaJet’s Project Speedbird in the UK to use waste wood to produce sustainable fuel and Air France–KLM has invested in Dutch SAF producer SkyNRG. This is the kind of deep alignment we need between producers and buyers.
Fuel producers are looking at a wide range of pathways, including co-processing SAF in traditional refineries; stand-alone large facilities to produce SAF at scale; and modular, low-cost technologies to build agile, capital-light facilities that they can deploy quickly. This flexibility allows them to trial novel feedstocks. Britain’s Firefly Green Fuels is working to use sewage sludge from water utilities to produce SAF. With a ready supply of a low-cost feedstock and relatively simple production technology, the company expects to significantly lower the cost of sustainable fuel.
To unlock scale, investors must move beyond isolated project funding and support collaborative models, such as revenue sharing, buyer coalitions— especially with corporate customers, and long-term supply agreements that can spread risk and incentivize cost reduction across production, distribution, and procurement. Our research shows that investors want airports to partner with producers, distributors, and airlines—who have an interest in assuring their fuel supply—to co-develop robust SAF supply networks and mitigate risks. They want to make adoption easier and more scalable, but none of this can happen without a regulatory framework and SAF strategy first being in place.
The aviation industry has learned to be lean. Now it needs the same focus on being green. Accelerating progress towards more sustainable flying calls for a symphony of orchestrated action where producers, consumers, policymakers, and players in the messy middle all create the conditions to successfully scale SAF.
