KWE, Shell Aviation launch SAF book-and-claim pilot for freight sector

Tokyo, Japan-based Kintetsu World Express Inc. and Shell Aviation have launched an initiative to trial the Smart Freight Centre’s multimodal sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) book-and-claim guidelines.

The initiative was carried out through Avelia, Shell’s blockchain-powered SAF book-and-claim solution that provides fully traceable environmental attributes of SAF to help decarbonize the aviation industry.

Avelia is designed to aggregate and leverage demand for SAF across the aviation value chain to structurally scale SAF.

The pilot scheme aims to provide input for and demonstrate the credibility of the SFC guidelines regarding the use of book-and-claim in the air-cargo sector.

By using Avelia’s blockchain technology, SAF’s environmental attributes can be allocated to logistic-service providers, airlines and shippers in a secure and credible manner to reduce lifecycle carbon emissions in their respective scopes, while ensuring transparency and accountability by avoiding double counting.

“KWE’s material topics for sustainability include reducing CO2 emissions and promoting green-energy use, and we are moving ahead on setting emission-reduction targets and planning specific initiatives for the KWE Group overall,” said Yoshikazu Yashiki, KWE’s managing officer. “We are committed to reducing CO2 emissions both in Japan and worldwide in order to mitigate the environmental burden of our global business operations and SAF could play a key role in this effort.”

Doris Tan, head of Shell Aviation in the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions, added, “Following the initial success of Avelia in the business-travel sector, we are now keen to expand its use to support the decarbonization of air cargo. Through our collaboration with Kintetsu World Express we hope to accelerate the SFC multimodal SAF book-and-claim use across different modes of freight transport, which could be pivotal in decarbonizing the cargo sector.”

SAF offers significant potential for decarbonization without the need to modify existing aviation infrastructure.

When used neat, it can reduce lifecycle emissions by up to 80 percent compared to conventional jet fuel.