Climate change is one of the most critical challenges faced by humanity today, which requires action from all stakeholders including governments, civil society, businesses, private sector, financiers, and investors. The aviation sector is among the first global sectors to have committed to taking climate action. In 2021, the global aerospace industry committed to net-zero CO₂ emissions by 2025 and in 2022 governments adopted a long-term global aspirational goal (LTAG) to achieve net-zero carbon emissions from international aviation by 2050 at ICAO 41^st Assembly. This is the first time a global sector has made such a commitment and demonstrates unity and leadership. Today, the aviation sector accounts for around 2.5 per cent of global CO₂ emissions. However, this share will grow without decarbonization initiatives, given the rapidly increasing demands for air travel and expected emission reduction from other sectors. The importance of aviation makes the decoupling of passenger growth and emissions vital. Aviation is one of the hardest to abate sectors and without intervention, emissions from the sector are expected to reach 1.8–2 Gt CO₂ by 2050.

Decarbonizing the aviation sector requires a comprehensive approach consisting of multiple measures, including fleet replacement, advanced technology, sustainable fuels, operational improvements, and market-based measures. Fleet replacement offers the most immediate emissions improvement with a best in class new aircraft delivering around a 20 per cent efficiency improvement over the one it is replacing.  However, in several parts of the world, including India, much of the new fleet deliveries is adding to capacity to meet additional demand.  Importantly, Boeing's Cascade Climate Impact Model and other studies show that Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is the biggest lever commercial aviation has to reduce emissions over the next 30 years. Estimates suggest that transitioning to the use of SAF that is renewable, lower-carbon alternative from the conventional jet fuel can reduce the life cycle carbon emissions by up to 84 per cent, with the potential to reduce even more in the future. And SAF has an advantage to be certified and easily used as a drop-in fuel. Furthermore, SAF can be an economically promising option for a country like India which has a large landmass and variety of feedstock options available.

India has abundant feedstock such as (i) agriculture crop residues, (ii) maize/sugar production (iii) used cooking oil, (iv) municipal solid waste, among others. In 2021, the World Economic Forum produced a report estimating that India could produce up to 24 million tonnes of SAF annually. This was also reinforced by the Minister, MoPNG in 2023.  India set initial indicative SAF-blending target for international flights as 1 per cent SAF blending in 2027 and 2 per cent SAF blending in 2028. Various feedstock assessment studies conducted for India suggest that India has enough potential to meet its SAF blend target requirements and may even have possibility of surplus SAF production.  A recent report suggests that various mandates and targets will likely drive the global demand for SAF to about 18 Mt by 2030 and about 185 Mt by 2040. It is an opportunity for India to export SAF surplus and meet the global SAF demand. Besides this, there are other co-benefits of SAF production. The use of agricultural crop residue towards SAF production would help increase farmers' income and address problems such as local air pollution. Similarly, use of municipal solid waste toward SAF production could resolve local waste management issues among others. WEF report had summarized all benefits of SAF production in India such as reduced carbon emissions, macroeconomic benefits like creation of new green jobs, enhanced energy security and local benefits like health benefits by alleviating air pollution helping to meet Sustainable Development Goals.

While India has significant potential to produce and export SAF, the current production volumes are relatively small.  Even globally SAF production today is a small fraction of the global jet fuel market. SAF production volumes reached 1 Mt in 2024 doubling from 0.5 Mt produced in 2023. According to IATA, this meets around 0.50 per cent of the aviation industry's fuel requirements. In November 2023 at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)'s third Conference on Aviation and Alternative Fuels a vision was agreed to reduce CO₂ ​emissions in international aviation by
5 per cent by 2030 through the use of SAF, LCAF, and other aviation cleaner energies in 2023. This highlights the need for more effective policy in order for SAF to scale at the necessary rate over the next 5 years.

Some of the key challenges for SAF in India include:

Lack of stable feedstock supply chain: SAF can be produced from a variety of feedstocks. However, it is difficult to collect feedstock and transport feedstock to be processed for SAF production. It is therefore important to establish a steady and viable supply chain which provides for adequate distribution and storage facilities to enable continuous SAF feedstock availability for SAF production. Specialized SAF production would create a more robust supply chain. 

High-capital investments required: High costs are associated with SAF production technology as production process are complex requiring specialized equipment. The cost of setting up an SAF production plant requires substantial investments. 'Rules of Thumb' for SAF developed by ICAO's CAEP experts suggest: large-scale SAF plants require around $1 bn. In order to take full advantage of India's feedstock potential, state-of-the-art production capabilities are required along with significant investments in research and development, new infrastructure, and production capacity. Stakeholder interactions in India suggest there are about 7–10 plants at various stages of production in India and would be fully operational by 2027. Taking examples from other sectors like solar, it can be said that it is likely that costs could fall significantly as technologies mature and the SAF industry reaches economies of scale.

SAF technical evaluation process: There are 11 technology pathways approved to produce SAF while another 11 are under evaluation. These pathways utilize various feedstocks and processes to produce SAF that can be blended with conventional jet fuel or used as a standalone fuel. These technological pathways have been approved by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) certification. The process to obtain certification is technical, complex, and time-consuming as SAF must fulfil strict criteria to ensure it is technically fit for purpose. From India, CSIR-IIP submitted single reactor HEFA technology pathway in 2021 which is under evaluation.

Way Forward

Developing a conducive SAF ecosystem will require supportive policies and significant investments in the SAF value chain and SAF production capacity. While there is a proposed blending mandate from the government, a comprehensive mix of policies such as incentives for SAF production; de-risking capital investments and demand-side policies is required to enable SAF ecosystem. India has experience in the development of new technologies like solar which can be leveraged upon to establish a conducive domestic SAF ecosystem. The Global Biofuel Alliance (GBA), launched in 2023, has India as its host country and offers an opportunity for India to demonstrate leadership in enabling SAF ecosystem by addressing challenges related to feedstock availability, streamlining supply chain, encouraging investment in SAF production, and developing facilitative policy frameworks at the global level. At a more granular level in India, it is important to get all the right stakeholders from the aviation, energy, policy, and finance sectors together to deliberate and highlight issues and challenges with respect to scaling SAF.  Establishing a domestic SAF industry in India is both possible and offers opportunity including GDP growth, job creation, energy security and supporting long-term resilience for the aviation sector. Leveraging global experience, while collaborating with local public and private stakeholders is the pathways for establishing and scaling a SAF industry in India.

Web Resources

https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Documents/Assembly/Resolution_A41-21_Climate_change.pdf

https://ourworldindata.org/global-aviation-emissions

https://www.iata.org/contentassets/1d7b998cda0a46a1ab31d4ee3cce5eaf/chart-aviation-carbon-emissions-to-be-abated-by-2050.pdf

https://app.cascade.boeing.com/

https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Clean_Skies_for_Tomorrow_India_Report_2021.pdf

https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1925417

https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1979705

https://www2.deloitte.com/in/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/sustainable-aviation-fuel-report.html

https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Clean_Skies_for_Tomorrow_India_Report_2021.pdf

https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2024-releases/2024-12-10-03

https://sustainabilitymag.com/articles/inside-the-disappointingly-slow-year-for-saf-production

https://www.icao.int/Meetings/CAAF3/Documents/ICAO%20Global%20Framework%20on%20Aviation%20Cleaner%20Energies_24Nov2023.pdf

https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Pages/SAF_RULESOFTHUMB.aspx

https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/GFAAF/Pages/conversion-processes.aspx #