Belém 4x Pledge and recent developments in sustainable aviation fuels

For the sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) industry, the key initiative to emerge from COP30 was the “Belém 4x Pledge”, spearheaded by Italy, Japan, India and Brazil and supported by 23 other countries, to quadruple sustainable fuel production and use by 2035. The pledge focused on the need to take comprehensive domestic action to support sustainable fuel development and strengthen international collaboration, whilst ensuring that efforts to scale-up production are conducted in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.

The announced target was based on the work of the International Energy Agency in their report, released before COP30 opened, “Delivering Sustainable Fuels – Pathways to 2035”, which noted that the broader transport sector remained the main driver of sustainable fuel demand through to 2035. Whilst the pledge is not confined solely to the aviation sector and extends to hydrogen, biogases, biofuels and e-fuels more broadly, the International Energy Agency report noted that within the transport sector “aviation is the transport mode with the highest energy demand growth in recent years, with a rise of 17 percent from 2015 to 2024 compared to 10 percent for road transport and 5 percent for shipping”. As aviation demand continues to rise, development of the SAF market will remain one of the foremost challenges for the aviation industry and wider energy sector.

The SAF market has come a long way since the first test flight powered by biojet fuel took place in 2008. Whilst it remains the case that – on IATA’s projections – SAF production for 2025 will still only amount to 0.7 percent of global jet fuel use, 2025 has marked another key milestone in the development of the SAF market, especially in the European Union and the UK as binding blending mandates under ReFuelEU Aviation and the UK SAF mandate (respectively) came into force. The UK government launched a further consultation in October on the technical design of the levy on fuel suppliers to fund the revenue certainty mechanism that it is hoped will support development of the UK SAF market, and additional policy development, especially in Asia, is projected to further stimulate demand. The European Commission published its Sustainable Transport Investment Plan (STIP) earlier in November, setting out its roadmap to accelerate rapidly the energy transition of the aviation and waterborne transport sectors, outlining measures expected to mobilise at least €2.9 billion of funding until the end of 2027. This includes €153 million for synthetic aviation fuel projects and a commitment to launch an eSAF Early Movers Coalition pilot project by the end of 2025, aiming to mobilise at least €500 million for synthetic aviation fuel projects. Many of the world’s leading airlines remain committed to using 10 percent SAF in their overall fuel usage by 2030.

The SAF market will still enter 2026 facing some key challenges for the future, however. The vast majority of currently-producing SAF projects rely on the hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) pathway, but the supply of used cooking oil and other similar HEFA feedstocks will reach a natural limit and eventually constrain SAF supply without other pathways scaling-up. Some producers have scaled-back or cancelled projects during 2025, and given development lead times and production costs, much more will need to be done to ensure e-SAF and power-to-liquid alternatives to HEFA scale-up in time to avoid a projected shortfall in SAF market capacity as mandated levels increase. Whilst policy development and additional funding such as that outlined in the STIP is therefore to be welcomed, the continuing development of the SAF market will require an ever greater coordinated effort between policy-makers, SAF producers, airlines and other offtakers and the finance community. 

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