The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which is the global representative body for the airline industry, has announced the release of its Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Matchmaker platform. This is intended to match requests for the supply of SAF and offers to supply SAF, thereby facilitating SAF procurement deals between airlines and SAF producers. The platform is hosted on the centralised digital Aviation Energy Hub.

“To reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, we need an accessible, transparent, liquid, and efficient SAF market,” highlighted IATA senior VP sustainability and chief economist Marie Owens Thomsen. “The SAF Matchmaker is another example of the work that IATA is putting in place to create a fully functioning market for SAF. The SAF Matchmaker platform will accelerate the uptake of SAF by reducing the costs and complexity that airlines face when searching for SAF suppliers.”

The platform will be able to support both the conclusion of offtake agreements and spot SAF purchases. Currently, the platform was open to only airlines and SAF suppliers. But, in due course, other SAF purchasers – for example, non-aviation businesses – would also be able to join it.

The platform addresses three critical issues – efficiency, connectivity, and visibility.

Efficiency is assured because the SAF Matchmaker provides a central platform for SAF procurement, thereby making it both easier and faster for all concerned. And it does not involve additional fees. Consequently, it will promote the further development of the voluntary SAF purchasing market.

The platform provides connectivity, as producers and suppliers can post on it their available or planned SAF quantities and airlines can then register their interest in buying the displayed volumes (or post the quantity of SAF they wish to obtain). The actual trades will occur outside the platform.

Visibility is assured because the platform carries a wide range of information. This includes the available volumes of SAF, the feedstocks used in the production of these SAF, the technology employed and the location of the production, and emissions reductions. It also provides information on compliance with the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s Carbon Offsetting Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (better known as CORSIA) and the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive.