On the surface, buying SAF certificates sounds straightforward.
A company has aviation emissions. Sustainable Aviation Fuel can reduce the lifecycle emissions of flying. The company buys certificates linked to SAF and counts them as part of its Scope 3 strategy. Simple.
Until the buyer starts asking the next questions. Which supplier? Which fuel? Which feedstock? Which registry? Which certification scheme? Which accounting treatment? Which price is fair? Which volumes are additional? Which documents will the auditor accept?
That is where the market becomes less obvious. SAFc are becoming easier to access. They are not necessarily easier to evaluate, and for an ESG or finance team signing off the spend, evaluation is the whole job.
The same label can hide very different products
SAF is not one thing. It can be made from used cooking oil, animal fats, agricultural residues, alcohol-based pathways, municipal waste, or synthetic fuels produced from renewable hydrogen and captured carbon.
Each route has different economics, scalability, sustainability implications and reputational risk. A certificate linked to one type of SAF may not be equivalent to a certificate linked to another.
This does not mean buyers need to become fuel chemists. But they do need to know what sits underneath the certificate. A low price can reflect efficiency. It can also reflect weaker quality, weaker documentation or weaker additionality. In this market, cheapest and best value are rarely the same thing.
The registry matters more than people think
A SAF certificate only works if the market trusts the system behind it. That is the role of registries.
A registry should record the environmental attribute, track ownership, prevent double counting and document retirement. Once a certificate is retired for a buyer, no one else should be able to sell or claim the same benefit.
In practice the registry landscape is still developing. Different systems exist, and they do not all share identical rules. Some are linked to specific market participants. Some have stricter sustainability criteria than others. Some are more transparent than others.
For a corporate buyer this creates a practical problem. You are not only buying an environmental attribute. You are relying on the credibility of the accounting infrastructure that holds it. That infrastructure should be tested before procurement, not explained after the fact.
The claim comes first, but it is its own discipline
One principle is worth stating early: the claim should guide the procurement, not the other way around. A company should know whether it wants a Scope 3 reduction claim, a contribution claim, or a more cautious internal progress claim before it buys, because each carries different documentation and risk. How to design and defend that claim is a subject in its own right, and we cover it separately.
Additionality is where the hard questions start
The voluntary SAF market exists alongside regulation, and that creates tension.
If a volume of SAF is already required under a blending mandate, should a voluntary buyer be able to pay for the certificate and claim the benefit? If a producer receives subsidies or compliance credits, does that weaken the voluntary claim? If several parties touch the same fuel, who gets to say they caused the reduction?
These are not theoretical questions. They go to the integrity of the purchase, and to whether it survives audit. A buyer does not need perfect philosophical certainty, but it does need a position on whether the volume is above mandated requirements, how incentives are treated, and whether the rules prevent overlapping claims.
This is one reason SAFc procurement should not be delegated blindly. A buyer can outsource execution. It should not outsource judgment.
Good procurement is mostly about avoiding weak purchases
The SAFc market will mature. Standards will improve, prices will become more transparent, registries will consolidate, and buyers will gain experience.
But today the market still rewards careful buyers. The companies that do well are not necessarily the ones buying the most volume. They are the ones asking sharper questions before they commit. A practical due-diligence checklist usually includes:
- What fuel pathway and feedstock is behind the certificate?
- Which sustainability certification applies?
- Which registry creates and retires the certificate?
- Is the volume linked to voluntary demand beyond mandates?
- What emissions factor and lifecycle methodology are used?
- What exact claim will the company make, and what documents support it?
This is not bureaucracy. It is protection. When ESG claims are challenged, vague intent does not help much. Evidence does.
The most important SAFc decision is not the supplier. It is whether the purchase can survive scrutiny later.
The market is young, but the direction is serious
SAFc sit at the intersection of aviation decarbonisation, environmental attribute markets, Scope 3 accounting and corporate climate strategy. That makes them commercially interesting, but also easy to misunderstand.
Companies that move early can learn faster, build supplier relationships and prepare for a market that may matter more as net zero and SBTi-aligned reporting frameworks evolve. But moving early should not mean moving carelessly. It should mean building the internal muscle to buy well.
SAFc can help companies support lower-carbon aviation. The quality of the outcome depends on the quality of the procurement process. Refine works with buyers to make that process clearer, more comparable and easier to defend.
