Many people may know this already, but just in case not, E5 and E10 petrol? The E stands for Ethanol – a renewable fuel made from plant-based material (known collectively as biomass). The number represents the % of it blended with fossil gasoline. For example, the E10 fuel you see at the pump today, contains 10% Ethanol blended with 90% fossil gasoline. The environmental reduction is achieved by burning 10% less fossil fuel. Simple isn’t it.
Here's the idea....What if this approach were extended to Sustainable Aviation Fuel, for example S5 and S10? These are not real labels - I made them up – but it is interesting to see how an identical theme could so easily be applied to SAF – Especially in the voluntary sector where corporate clients could select their own SAF blend and be able to apply the corresponding label across their corporate travel programme e.g. “All of our corporate air travel is flown on Sustainable Aviation Fuel S10” (10% SAF and 90% Fossil Kerosene)
Many large clients could easily decide to fly S5 to S10 today - by simply redirecting their existing carbon offset budget into a direct purchase of SAF. Climate leaders may prefer to make a larger investment in a higher blend percentage say S25 or even S50 and attach the corresponding label to their corporate travel programme. In practice, clients would not buy blended fuel, but would purchase sufficient neat SAF to achieve their required total. For example, 10 tonnes of neat SAF would produce 100 tonnes of S10 - or - 100 tonnes of neat SAF would produce 2000 tonnes of S5. (Emissions reductions are attributed to the amount of neat SAF purchased and will qualify to be reported against SBTI).
All just a concept, but a possible new way of communicating the environmental action of buying Sustainable Aviation Fuel and being able to position and present this in a way that more stakeholders will instinctively recognise - real fuel achieving real environmental reductions, today.