Emissions offset company 4Air has launched its Assure SAF Registry, a blockchain-based web registry designed to document, trace and account for the sustainability attributes of sustainable aviation fuel.

The Assure SAF Registry provides complete transparency about the type of SAF purchased, the feedstock used, the blend of the fuel and any sustainability certifications earned or regulatory programmes for which the fuel may be eligible. The registry is designed for both physical and book and claim supply chains of SAF, and will simplify inventory accounting and prevent double-counting of benefits, all while protecting suppliers' commercially sensitive and confidential data. By uniquely addressing a SAF tracking need for fuel suppliers, FBOs, airlines and operators within the physical supply chain, the registry can unlock the opportunity for a robust book and claim tracking system as well.

“Most SAF today comes from one to two different feedstocks with a narrow range of blends. As SAF expands to new feedstocks and higher blends, transparency about the fuel and where it came from will be critical in efforts to scale its use across the industry, including both business and commercial aviation,” says president Kennedy Ricci. “Assure SAF Registry will provide a key piece of infrastructure for the transparent scale-up of SAF in aviation, providing transparency to emission claims around SAF while maximising the value for the operator.”

Leveraging the expertise gained through the documentation of 5.8 million gallons of SAF over the last two years, 4Air has created a registry that addresses the most challenging pain points found when tracing the usage of SAF. Usually, SAF is co-mingled in airport pipelines or fuel farms under mass balance or book and claim chains of custody, making it laborious to document, particularly when trying to retain information for regulatory claims from the use of the fuel.

The Assure SAF Registry serialises each unit of fuel and is linked to a specific owner and batch of SAF. This ensures that only one owner can ever claim a specific quantity of fuel and that sustainability characteristics are consistently and accurately communicated through various owners, providing confidence in the ownership and emissions accounting up and down the SAF supply chain.

Pilot programmes will help the platform to automate integrations with supplier systems, eliminating the need for much of the manual reporting and accounting. In addition, a pilot programme with the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) will seek recognition within the RSB book and claim system and work towards ecosystem harmonisation and a credible claim for customers.