Sustainable Aviation Fuel Certificates for Air Freight Forwarders: How to Sell and Account for SAF

Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is a drop-in jet fuel made from waste oils, residues or other non-fossil feedstocks that, on a life-cycle basis, emits less greenhouse gas than fossil kerosene. For a forwarder, "selling SAF" almost never means delivering fuel to a customer's aircraft. It means buying SAF's environmental attributes, usually through an airline programme or a registry, and passing the right to claim the emission reduction to a shipper through a certificate. The accounting only holds if each reduction is claimed once, by one party, with paperwork that says so. This guide covers how that works as of November 2026, what the mandates do and do not mean for you, and how to price and document it. It sits beside the ISO 14083 and GLEC guide, which covers how the shipment footprint itself is calculated.

What is SAF, and what is book and claim?

SAF is blended into the ordinary jet fuel system at a fuel farm or airport. Once it is mixed in, nobody can point at a specific aircraft and say it flew on a specific customer's SAF. That is why the industry uses book and claim:

• The SAF is produced, blended and delivered into the fuel system somewhere. The physical fuel is burned by whichever airline uplifts it.
• The environmental attributes (the life-cycle emission reduction relative to fossil jet fuel) are separated from the molecules, recorded and certified.
• The attributes are sold to a buyer, who "retires" them in a registry or programme and claims the reduction in its own reporting. A forwarder may be that buyer, or may be an intermediary passing the claim on to a shipper.

IATA describes its SAF Registry, now owned and operated by the non-profit Civil Aviation Decarbonization Organization (CADO), as a system for tracking, allocating and claiming SAF environmental attributes. IATA launched it in March 2025, and in its May 2026 cargo newsletter said the registry is free to use and already had more than 140 active organisations, with forwarders and shippers able to take part. Other registries and airline programmes exist as well, so a certificate is only as good as the system that issued it and prevents it being reused.

Does SAF remove emissions? The common misconception

No. This is the claim most worth correcting with customers. Burning SAF still releases carbon dioxide from the exhaust. The reduction is a life-cycle accounting difference: the feedstock absorbed or avoided carbon earlier in the chain, so the net figure per unit of energy is lower than for fossil kerosene. Airline programme pages put the saving at a pathway-dependent figure; Cathay, for example, states a weighted average of around 80 percent for the SAF in its 2024 programme. Two further points follow:

• Book and claim does not change the physical fuel an airline burns or the physical emissions of a flight. Reporting guidance from the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB, June 2026) says the claimed reduction should be disclosed separately from the physical emissions rather than netted against them.
• SAF is not a carbon offset. An offset pays for a reduction elsewhere; a SAF certificate is linked to a specific quantity of fuel that was produced and blended. Do not describe it as "carbon neutral shipping" or "removing" emissions.

Supply is small. Cathay's programme material, citing the industry, says SAF was about 0.3 percent of global jet fuel in 2024. Treat any promise of a "100 percent SAF shipment" with suspicion unless the paperwork shows exactly what was bought.

What is on a SAF certificate?

Formats differ by registry and airline, so check the issuer's template. A certificate a shipper can use in a sustainability report should normally let the reader trace the following:

• Issuer and unique ID, so the certificate can be looked up and shown to be retired once.
• Quantity of SAF (tonnes or litres, or the energy content) and the resulting emission reduction, with the calculation method and the life-cycle reduction factor used.
• Fuel details: feedstock, production pathway and the sustainability standard it was certified under.
• Delivery details: when and where the SAF entered the fuel system (airport or region), and the date range of the claim.
• Who holds the claim: the named beneficiary, and whether it is a Scope 1 claim (the airline's own fuel) or a Scope 3 claim (a customer of the airline). Some registries separate these two certificate types, so buyers must confirm they hold the Scope 3 version.
• Retirement statement: confirmation the attributes were retired and cannot be resold.
• Assurance: Cathay says it issues an emission reduction certificate with a third-party assurance letter. If an airline programme is used, ask for the same.

Airline SAF programmes for cargo customers

Several carriers sell SAF to forwarders and shippers directly. Terms change, so use the carrier's current page and contract, not a trade-press summary.

• Air France KLM Martinair Cargo launched a SAF programme for air freight customers in 2020. In its published material, customers choose their own level of engagement and the funds go to sourcing SAF; earlier releases refer to a third-party audited report of volumes and the CO2 reduction.
• Cathay Cargo runs a Corporate SAF Programme. Its 2025 programme update names Kuehne+Nagel as the largest cargo contributor and says DHL Express committed to 2,400 tonnes. The programme page describes an emission reduction certificate and a third-party assurance letter for Scope 3 reporting.

Prices vary by carrier, volume, fuel type and year, and we are not quoting any here. Ask each carrier for a written price per tonne of SAF or per tonne of CO2e avoided, the pathway, the claim period and the certificate template before you sell on to a customer.

CORSIA, ReFuelEU Aviation and EU ETS: who the rules bind

These three regimes are often mentioned in SAF sales pitches. None of them obliges a forwarder to buy SAF, but they shape fuel prices and what an airline can claim. Status as of 4 November 2026:

For how the EU ETS line reaches your invoices today, see the EU ETS and FuelEU surcharge guide. The allowances above are an airline subsidy, so they may not lower an ETS surcharge passed on to customers.

Double counting: the real risk

A single SAF volume produces one emission reduction. It can be claimed by an airline against its own fuel (Scope 1) and, through the correct Scope 3 instrument, by a customer, but the same Scope 3 reduction cannot be sold to two shippers, or reported by both you and your customer as if each had cut emissions separately. RSB's June 2026 guidance makes three points worth copying into your process:

• A claim must be consistent with the retirement statements and fuel data behind it. A forwarder's disclosed reduction must not exceed what those documents support.
• More than one party can hold a valid, distinct claim in the chain (for example a logistics provider and a corporate end-user) if each is described transparently and the total is not misrepresented.
• A claim should not exceed the reporting company's own footprint for the period.

Registries exist to prevent reuse. IATA has announced work with another registry operator on interoperability to reduce double issuance, which shows the risk is taken seriously but is not yet closed across all systems. If you buy through a bilateral deal outside a registry, ask how the seller prevents resale.

What a customer needs to claim a Scope 3 reduction

The GHG Protocol has not yet published a final standard for market-based accounting of Scope 3 instruments such as SAF certificates. Its Actions and Market Instruments work was at request-for-information stage in 2026, and summaries of the plan point to formal public consultation in 2027; check the GHG Protocol for the current status. In practice, shippers rely on guidance from bodies such as the Smart Freight Centre, whose SAF accounting guidance is based on the GLEC Framework and aligned with the GHG Protocol, and on RSB. The freight emissions reporting guide shows where this sits in a shipper's wider obligations. Ask each customer which framework their auditor uses, then supply:

1. The certificate or retirement statement naming the customer (or a clear allocation from your own certificate to them).
2. The period, lane or shipments the claim relates to, and the SAF quantity and emission reduction allocated.
3. A statement that the claim is not made elsewhere, and the registry or programme ID so it can be checked.
4. The shipment emissions calculated under ISO 14083, so the reduction is shown against a baseline footprint, not on its own.
5. Any assurance letter the airline or registry provides.

Whether the claim lands in Category 4 (upstream transport) or elsewhere depends on how the customer buys freight, so leave that classification to them.

How to price and invoice SAF

There is no single market convention. Two common structures:

• A separate, optional line ("SAF contribution, X tonnes, certificate ID") shows the customer what they are buying, makes refusal easy and keeps the freight rate comparable. It fits the way air freight rates are built from chargeable weight.
• Embedded in the rate bundles a programme cost into the per-kilo price. It is simpler to sell but harder to evidence, and a customer cannot sensibly claim a reduction they did not knowingly buy.

Whichever you use, tie each invoice line to a certificate and an allocation basis (for example, by chargeable weight and distance, in line with your ISO 14083 method). Decide in advance whether you sell at cost or with a disclosed handling margin. Whether the amount is revenue or a pass-through, and how it is taxed, is a question for your accountant and may differ by country. If you hold capacity under an agreement such as those in our guide to air freight allotments and block space, check whether the carrier's SAF programme is covered by the same contract.

What to do next

1. Ask two carriers or a registry for their current SAF terms in writing: price basis, pathway, claim period, Scope 1 versus Scope 3 certificate and retirement process.
2. Write a one-page allocation rule that ties every shipment's SAF share to its ISO 14083 footprint, and keep a ledger from certificate ID to invoice line to customer.
3. Put wording on quotes and invoices that says "SAF certificate" and "emission reduction claim", never "emission-free" or "removes emissions".
4. Have your accountant confirm the revenue and tax treatment before the first invoice, and have your customer confirm which reporting framework their auditor expects.

Customers who ask about SAF often also ask for quotes on lanes you may not cover yourself. More than 29,300 logistics companies are searchable by country and service in the CargoLinked directory, and the public requests board lists freight that shippers have posted for forwarders to quote on directly.

This guide gives general information as of 4 November 2026. It is not legal, tax, accounting or sustainability-assurance advice. Mandates, registry rules and reporting standards change, so confirm the current position with the issuing body, your carrier and a licensed professional.