Qantas kicks $75m into new Airbus-led sustainable fuel alliance

The new investment is part of Qantas’ $400 million climate fund, which also includes its partnership with Airbus to develop a domestic SAF industry.

“Aviation is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise and it’s going to take partnerships across industries like this to help close the gap between supply and demand,” said Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson.

“The current imbalance is one of the reasons SAF comes at a significant premium compared to jet kerosene, so it’s critical for the industry to invest now in scaling production.

“Through our Climate Fund and our SAF partnership with Airbus, we continue to have a strong focus on Australian projects to accelerate the establishment of a domestic industry, however most of the new SAF investment opportunities here have long development lead times.

“The SAFFA fund will enable us to get priority access to SAF sooner in key overseas markets while helping drive the development of the overall industry.”

In a statement, Airbus said the commitment from the seven partner companies – itself, Qantas, the Air France-KLM Group, Associated Energy Group, BNP Paribas, Burnham Sterling, and Mitsubishi HC Capital – totals around US$200 million.

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“The corporate partners worked with investment manager Burnham Sterling Asset Management to establish the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Financing Alliance (SAFFA) investment fund in which Airbus is the Anchor Investor,” the planemaker said.

“Each partner brings experience and financial expertise to the fund with the ambition to accelerate the availability of SAF by investing mainly in technologically mature SAF-producing projects using for instance waste-based feedstocks. Investments will be diversified across various SAF’s production pathways and also by region.”

Qantas Group chief sustainability officer Andrew Parker last year called for a SAF blending mandate to cut aviation emissions, saying several of its destination countries already have SAF blending mandates of 5 to 10 per cent by 2030, and that Australia is well-placed to create a domestic SAF industry.

“Without the right policy settings and signals we will see investment, projects and feedstocks move offshore to places with specific policy support. We look forward to working with government and the rest of the industry to ensure we capitalise on this opportunity for Australia,” Parker said.