Shell’s SAF book and claim platform Avelia expands to air freight

Shell Aviation sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) book and claim platform Avelia announced it is expanding its services into the air freight sector with Avelia Air Freight Solutions.

“The high cost of SAF requires innovative solutions. By enabling the sharing of environmental attributes between physical SAF users and organisations seeking to meet their sustainability targets, Avelia creates a pathway for broader participation in aviation decarbonisation,” said Raman Ojha, president, Shell Aviation.

“Avelia is now evolving to meet the air freight sector’s need for solutions to demonstrate verified emissions reduction progress. Through enabling freight forwarders to access and allocate SAF environmental attributes to their shipping customers, both parties can access these attributes for emissions disclosure while supporting broader SAF adoption.”

Since its launch in June 2022 to the end of 2023, over 20 corporations have teamed up with Avelia to purchase environmental attributes associated with SAF totalling 49m gallons of SAF to be supplied by Shell up to 2026.

Once injected into the fuelling network, this could bring the total abated CO2e to more than 450,000 tCO2e, the equivalent of nearly 800,000 passengers flying from London to New York.

20 corporations and airlines have purchased environmental attributes associated with the supplied SAF, transacted through over 550 customer Declarations of Environmental Attributes (DEA) retirements in Avelia.

Every year, 35% of world’s trade by value is carried by air. Air freight produced an estimated 19% of all aviation emissions in 2018, and by 2023 air cargo flight volume increased by 25% compared to 2019. Avelia aims to address these challenges by allowing freight forwarders the ability to allocate the environmental attributes of SAF across the value chain to the shippers using their services.

Earlier this year, Japanese energy firm ENEOS Corporation launched of its own SAF book and claim service powered by Shell’s Avelia blockchain solution, allowing airlines and corporates in Japan to purchase environmental attributes of SAF, reducing their carbon footprint.