A coalition of corporations, including the likes of Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Meta and Boston Consulting Group will be working together through the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA) to purchase sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) certificates. The move aims to decarbonize corporate air travel and jump-start a broader market for SAF.
“Our support and purchase of SAF through SABA is one way in which we are working to meet our goal of utilizing SAF for at least 20% of the company’s annual employee aviation fuel usage by 2030, while spurring broader demand to make SAF more accessible and affordable,” said Alex Liftman, Global Environmental Executive at Bank of America.
Corporate air travel is also on the agenda for Meta and their Head of Net Zero Strategy Devon Lake said that: “SAF certificates enable corporate aviation customers like Meta to credibly and transparently contribute to decarbonizing the aviation sector. Buying SAF through SABA’s collective procurement process allows us to go one further and send a strong and coordinated demand signal to the market, ” said Devon Lake, Head of Net Zero Strategy at Meta.
The sustainable aviation fuel that will be involved in the transaction comes from World Energy, and has 84% less carbon emissions than regular jet fuel. The members of SABA will be buying 850,000 gallons of the fuel which will in turn be used by JetBlue flights in 2023 for savings of 8,500 tons of CO2.
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This purchase and SAFs in general have a miniscule footprint compared to overall jet fuel consumption (SAF accounts for less than 0.1% of supply). But the joint order is the first of its kind and paves the way for more collective buying which has the potential to charge the market and increase trust and speed between all stakeholders.
SABA will begin a second procurement process and will increase the timeframe of the certificate validity to five years. The organization hopes that this will attract more airlines and fuel producers, essentially planting the seeds of a future market.
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