Policy brief: Policy support options for promoting Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) in South Africa

The document argues that South Africa can achieve strategic goals—including preparing for ICAO's CORSIA framework, supporting its tourism sector against 'flight shame', and creating green jobs—by developing a domestic SAF industry. It identifies a wide range of policy tools such as blending mandates, financial incentives, and taxation. The brief proposes a phased roadmap for South Africa: short-term (2020-2025) focus on a 2-3% blending mandate and a long-term (beyond 2030) target to replace 50% of aviation fuel with locally produced SAF by 2050.

• South Africa has significant technical potential to meet its domestic SAF demand and become an exporter. Using energy crops, the potential is between 80-180% of current jet fuel demand and 60-115% of 2050 demand; including agricultural residues increases this to 260% of current and over 140% of long-term demand.
• The document recommends a phased policy approach for South Africa: short-term (2020-2025) goals include a modest blending mandate of 2-3% by 2025; medium-term (2026-2030) goals involve joining the first phase of CORSIA and scaling up incentives for competitive feedstocks; and long-term (beyond 2030) goals aim for a 2050 target to replace at least 50% of aviation fuel with locally produced SAF.
• Promoting SAF is presented as a strategic necessity for South Africa to maintain global connectivity, protect the travel and tourism sector (which contributed ZAR 425.8 billion to the economy in 2018) from the 'flight shame' movement, and comply with the Carbon Tax Bill of 2019.
• Various international policy instruments are identified as effective for SAF uptake, including blending mandates in Norway and Sweden, a 1.2 multiplier for SAF towards biofuel targets in the European Union, and emission reduction credits under California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
• The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) manages international aviation emissions through a 'basket of measures', including the Carbon Offset Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), which integrates SAF as 'CORSIA Eligible Fuels' requiring at least a 10% net GHG reduction in life cycle emissions compared to the baseline.
• The document identifies five primary categories of policy instruments to promote SAF: support for research and development, blending mandates, financial incentives (such as production facility grants and output subsidies), pricing mechanisms to address CAF volatility, and taxation instruments (such as kerosene taxes or passenger taxes).
• European nations have set diverse SAF targets: Sweden aims for 100% SAF by 2045, Norway targets 30% by 2030, and France envisions 50% by 2050.

APA

Upadhyaya, P., & Bole-Rentel, T. (2020). Policy brief: Policy support options for promoting Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) in South Africa. WWF South Africa. https://dtnac4dfluyw8.cloudfront.net/downloads/200228_w2w_wp4_saf_policy_brief_final.pdf

Chicago

Upadhyaya, Prabhat, and Tjaa Bole-Rentel. Policy brief: Policy support options for promoting Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) in South Africa. WWF South Africa, 2020. https://dtnac4dfluyw8.cloudfront.net/downloads/200228_w2w_wp4_saf_policy_brief_final.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Upadhyaya |first1=Prabhat |last2=Bole-Rentel |first2=Tjaa |title=Policy brief: Policy support options for promoting Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) in South Africa |publisher=WWF South Africa |date=February 2020 |url=https://dtnac4dfluyw8.cloudfront.net/downloads/200228_w2w_wp4_saf_policy_brief_final.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{upadhyaya2020policy, author = {Upadhyaya, Prabhat and Bole-Rentel, Tjaa}, title = {{Policy brief: Policy support options for promoting Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) in South Africa}}, institution = {WWF South Africa}, year = {2020}, month = feb, url = {https://dtnac4dfluyw8.cloudfront.net/downloads/200228_w2w_wp4_saf_policy_brief_final.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }