Elephant in the room - ICAO SAF Database

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has done a fantastic job at collecting SAF related information, including production facility information, offtake agreements, and more. For most in this industry, the ICAO has been the leading source of information for the advancement of the SAF industry. The Production Facilities page provides a list of 289, at the time of writing this post, facilities that have been announced to produce SAF and it covers global announcements.

The data is helpful as a starting point to help understand the growth and global reach of the industry. The gap that we have seen is that the data does not provide source information, there are facilities counted multiple times, and the production volume for most facilities is not 100% dedicated to SAF production. Renewable diesel fuels will be the primary product produced at most of the facilities announced within the database, as these fuels are cheaper to produce and have better market fit at this point (price compared to conventional fossil fuel diesels are closer than SAF price to jet fuel).

The SustainableAF database was compiled to further advance the ICAO information and to provide more context to the data. For instance, the United States appears to have the largest projected capacity of any country, however most of the projected capacity is based on facilities that are unlikely to be built.

Context is important for making investment decisions and airlines need to understand what facilities are likely to be built, what production capacity they will have, and when will they be in operation. Our goal is to help provide this additional context layered within our database to produce actionable data for individuals in the aviation industry.

As always, if any additional information is needed about our data, please feel free to contact nicholas@sustainableaf.info.