The Facts About Carbon Insets
Companies can’t afford to risk their credibility and reputation by making a loose promise or claiming an environmental benefit that isn’t verifiable. All participants have a lot at stake.
As momentum builds in the voluntary market through insets like SAFc, let’s set the record straight about decarbonizing with sustainable fuels and insets.
Myth: There isn’t a clear roadmap for addressing Scope 3 emissions.
Reality: Insets have created a plan for companies to follow.
Corporations with ambitious emissions reduction goals have been using insets like SAFc as indirect mitigation tools, even though they haven’t had a universal way for those reductions to be recognized. These first movers have set a clear example of how to use insets as a responsible business strategy. Their commitments have demonstrated demand and helped accelerate supply in the sustainable aviation fuel industry. Now, with certification measures and tracking systems — all of which create trusted conditions for participants to invest in clean fuels— the market has established guidance to help more companies use insets with confidence.
For example, the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) and the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) audit and verify that physical products and industrial supply chains meet or exceed environmental standards. In parallel, registries track environmental attributes to create transparency and accurately issue credits to the right customers.
Companies are demanding the highest standards in quality assurance and traceability — and industry leaders are meeting the call with an increasingly clear roadmap. Effective systems and models are operating at full speed to foster trust and confidence in addressing Scope 3 emissions through clean fuels and insets.
Myth: SAFc works by replacing conventional jet fuel with an equal volume of SAF.
Reality: Not all SAF is created equal. What matters is the fuel’s carbon intensity, which is measured by efficiency — not volume.
Unlike conventional jet fuel, which is bought exclusively for propulsion, fuels like SAF have two distinct purposes: propulsion and decarbonization.
Volume or price per gallon doesn’t accurately measure the efficiency of a clean fuel and its potential for decarbonization. If a company’s goal is to reduce emissions, then the best metrics relate to the carbon intensity of the products available — and not all clean fuels are equal in terms of their impact.
Carbon intensity (CI) is a measure of the total GHG emissions associated with producing and using a fuel, expressed as the amount of carbon dioxide (or equivalent emissions of another gas) produced per unit of energy (e.g., grams CO₂e/MJ). At World Energy, we help organizations rethink the efficiency and impact of their investments in biofuels by focusing on the carbon intensity of fuel, rather than on its volume. For example, the SAF we produce today has an emissions reduction level of up to 85 percent, on a full life-cycle basis.
Let’s compare that, volume-to-volume, to a SAF product that might look the same on the surface but that has life-cycle carbon emissions reductions of just 50 percent. An organization would need to purchase 67 percent more of the less efficient fuel to yield the same carbon reduction.
Myth: It’s the end product that matters — not how the fuel is made or delivered.
Reality: Every step counts in biofuels production.
To reduce emissions through sustainable fuels and insets, most customers are paying for — and should be concerned with — decarbonization services that start long before any fuel is produced. To that end, the behind-the-scenes production process absolutely contributes to the integrity of the fuel and its potential for carbon reduction.
For example, commercial producers of biofuels like SAF need to grapple with upstream environmental effects: How does the production process impact farms and food systems? What are the environmental costs of land and water use? Is the displacement of conventional fuels creating unintended environmental challenges?
To stand behind investments in SAF or other clean fuels, it is therefore critical for customers to understand the full social and environmental impacts of fuel alternatives so they can truly evaluate the impact of the insets they’re purchasing. This is where certification bodies such as RSB and ISCC come in, ensuring that clean products meet specific standards and are audited from end to end — with their entire supply chain and production methods accounted for.
Myth: Fuels like SAF are too scarce and costly to decarbonize aviation.
Reality: SAF is projected to account for 65 percent of aviation’s emissions reductions by 2050. 1
It’s true that SAF is more expensive than conventional jet fuel and is not readily available to address all aviation emissions. But the ecosystem is evolving quickly and dramatically through SAF and SAFc, and customers already have mechanisms to manage emissions from business travel and cargo delivery. As more leading companies invest in sustainable fuels through insets, and as advanced technologies continue to emerge, a virtuous cycle of demand is expanding availability for everyone.
One major accelerator of SAF supply and distribution is the current movement toward long-term offtake agreements. This trend of companies structuring multiyear commitments for decarbonation services through SAF and SAFc doesn’t just benefit individual customers. It also helps expand the entire biofuels market by raising confidence with investors who, in turn, provide more capital to build SAF refineries and develop systems to deliver it into the supply chain efficiently. These multiyear agreements are creating demand certainty and playing a crucial role in expanding the US supply of SAF, lowering customer costs, and reducing the environmental impact of aviation.
A Market Driven By Reality
Insets offer a market mechanism that can displace conventional fuels used in day-to-day business operations — without having to physically exchange molecules for molecules.
In-sector decarbonization is within reach. Now it’s time to take a seat at the table.
[1] Projections per https://www.iata.org/en/programs/sustainability/sustainable-aviation-fuels/ .
