Cleared for Takeoff: Building Canada’s Sustainable Aviation Fuel Ecosystem

Many of us fondly remember watching the Jetsons, a futuristic cartoon where flying cars are the transportation mode du jour. While technological leaps are being made to engineer the planes of the future — think electric and hydrogen-fueled — they may take decades to reach commercial viability. In the meantime, the aviation industry continues to be powered by a sole source: jet fuel. 

And that dependence is looking increasingly fragile.

As oil markets swing with every geopolitical tremor, the cost of jet fuel has climbed sharply. Analysts and industry leaders now talk openly about something that would have seemed implausible a few years ago: the risk that jet fuel supplies could actually run short. In mid-April 2026, the head of the International Energy Agency warned that parts of Europe were looking at critically low jet fuel reserves within weeks. A recent aviation sustainability report put it plainly — airlines may have a real opportunity to hedge against commodity price shocks and fossil fuel volatility by using sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

The urgency is no longer theoretical. It's showing up in departure lounges.

The Hard-to-Decarbonize Problem

If aviation were a country, it would rank among the world's top ten emitters. Air passenger traffic is expected to grow steadily toward 2050, with more than 10 billion passengers projected annually by the time we reach the Jetsons era (the show is set in 2062). Without significant intervention, CO₂ emissions from aviation could double in that same window.

Unlike other forms of transportation that are rapidly adopting electrification, aviation faces a much narrower set of decarbonization options. Batteries are too heavy, hydrogen infrastructure doesn't exist at scale yet, and the physics of flight constrain what's possible. Which leaves SAF as one of the only options to cut the heavy emissions the sector produces. 

SAF isn't a single fuel but a category of fuels derived from a range of lower-emission feedstocks: industrial crops like canola and mustard seed, tallows, fats, algae, forestry residues, and agricultural waste. Many of these biofuel crops are grown, and can be purpose-grown, right here in Canada. They absorb CO₂ during their growth cycle, so when burned, their net emissions are significantly lower than conventional jet fuel which is predominantly kerosene — a petroleum product. Critically, SAF is also a "drop-in" fuel; it looks and behaves like regular jet fuel and can be used in any aircraft with any engine. No retrofitting required.

The first SAF-powered commercial flight took place in 2008. By the late 2010s, over 100,000 flights globally had used some blend of biojet fuel. It can be made and it works well. The barrier to adopting SAF is systemic, not scientific.

Unlike other forms of transportation that are rapidly adopting electrification, aviation faces a much narrower set of decarbonization options.

Batteries are too heavy, hydrogen infrastructure doesn't exist at scale yet, and the physics of flight constrain what's possible. Which leaves SAF as one of the only options to cut the heavy emissions the sector produces. 

Gearing up for Takeoff

In 2017, Geoff Tauvette became an Energy Futures Lab Fellow. At the time, he was

Director of Fuel and Environment at WestJet. Even with the global energy transition well underway, he was very likely the only person in North America, and perhaps even globally, who was bridging fuel and environment departments at a major airline. 

"Environmental resources at airlines were not initially prioritized," Tauvette reflects. "They were very much 'back of the hangar.' But with climate at the forefront, emissions, procurement, and fuel departments are becoming more integrated. I was where airlines are now, but about a decade earlier."

For more than 30 years, Tauvette has been integrating aviation fuel procurement, logistics, and environmental management and it’s this rare combination that has provided him with a system-wide view of aviation's carbon challenge. In short, he had been advocating for this transition long before it was fashionable. He'd helped establish Canada's first large-scale closed-loop glycol spraying and recycling facility, and as far back as 2012 he testified before the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities calling for a Canadian policy framework to develop and promote aviation biofuels.

Joining the Fellowship gave him something he hadn't had before and something that would serve him well into the future: a convening platform, a collaborative network, a systems-thinking outlook, and a place to advance ideas that crossed organizational boundaries. "The Fellowship shaped how I think about sustainability and the energy transition". 

From Fellowship to Flight: The Biojet Initiative

When Tauvette brought the concept of sustainable aviation fuel into the Fellowship, the Lab launched into action. What made the Fellowship particularly valuable was who was in the room. Players like Shell, Suncor, and Enerkem were part of the EFL network — exactly the kinds of actors needed to move a fuel innovation from concept to value chain.

Jet fuel, after all, is a piece of the Alberta energy system, and the Fellowship had the right people from the right sectors already assembled. "We used the Fellowship as a kind of living lab," Tauvette reflects, "having access to people across the value chain to have the right discussions — testing ideas, aligning on a vision, asking what do we actually need to make this happen."

In November 2018, the Lab hosted a workshop on Mobility in a Low Carbon Future, bringing together representatives from across Alberta's public and private sectors — including AL-PAC, Edmonton International Airport, West Fraser, Alberta Agriculture, Alberta Energy, Emissions Reduction Alberta, Cenovus, Suncor, and Western Economic Diversification Canada (now Prairies Economic Development Canada). One of the most ambitious ideas to emerge was the WestJet-led Biojet initiative.

"Given what's going on around the world, what does low-carbon mobility mean for Alberta in the future?" said Pong Leung, the Lab's co-founder, at the time. "This is a key question on a lot of people's minds — and driving innovation."

The rationale was compelling. Alberta has significant potential for biofuels given the nexus of numerous feedstocks like canola and forestry and agriculture residuals, refining expertise and workforce. Finding a new, viable pathway wouldn't just reduce emissions, it could anchor a new regional opportunity for economic diversification and make use of an industrial byproduct.

"The Fellowship shaped how I think about sustainability and the energy transition ... We used the Fellowship as a kind of living lab, having access to people across the value chain to have the right discussions" - Geoff Tauvette

Building the Coalition: C-SAF Takes Off

The Lab’s convening work had a big impact on what would come next. The inspiration came, in part, from seeing how bringing multiple stakeholders together could catalyze an emerging industrial sector and give it a coherent voice. Tauvette recognized that SAF needed the same thing. In early 2022, Tauvette and a small but dedicated team from FSM Management launched the Canadian Council for Sustainable Aviation Fuels (C-SAF) with backing from more than 60 airlines, fuel consortiums, industry stakeholders, and government partners.

"Launching C-SAF wasn't a huge hill to climb," Tauvette says. The rapid membership growth reflected a long-suppressed need: the SAF ecosystem had players in every part of the value chain — feedstock producers, refiners, distributors, and airlines — but lacked a dedicated coordination body to drive issues forward. C-SAF became that space: a trusted, boots-on-the-ground action driver that could connect stakeholders and speak with one voice to the government.

C-SAF has since become a national advocacy voice for sustainable aviation fuel in Canada, actively engaging with the federal government on policy, incentives, and market design.

A Roadmap for the Future

With the coalition in place, Canada needed a strategy. Not just a policy discussion paper, but a full industrial roadmap that could guide policy, attract investment, and coordinate action across the value chain.

The Energy Futures Lab had been instrumental in developing a clean competitiveness roadmap for the battery metals sector in partnership with the Battery Metals Association of Canada and The Transition Accelerator. That same convening-research-industry input model would prove beneficial for SAF.

Through multi-stakeholder workshops, generative interviews, and the kind of facilitated co-creation the Lab is known for, a shared vision began to crystallize. The process engaged C-SAF members across the full Canadian SAF supply chain — from feedstock producers in British Columbia and Alberta to refiners in Ontario and Quebec to the airlines that would ultimately purchase and use the fuel. Working closely with Pong Leung and the Lab team on convening and alignment, Tauvette and the partners were able to embed strategy rather than just aspiration. "It became different from other roadmaps that look at SAF alone," he says. "It's situated within the full energy system — that came directly from working with EFL."

In June 2023, the partners released The C-SAF Roadmap: Building a feedstocks-to-fuels SAF supply chain in Canada — Canada's first national SAF industrial strategy.

The Roadmap set ambitious but grounded targets:

• By 2030: Produce 1 billion litres of SAF annually, representing roughly 10% of all jet fuel used in Canada, saving more than 1.5 million tonnes of GHG emissions.

• By 2035: Scale to meet 25% of Canadian jet fuel demand, cutting aircraft departure emissions by 15–20%.

Three strategic objectives framed the path forward: maximize production now using commercially ready pathways; activate new large-scale feedstock channels from Canada's forestry residues, agricultural waste, and captured carbon; and seed advanced demonstration facilities using next-generation Canadian technologies.

The Roadmap also broke new ground in how it framed the challenge. Rather than treating SAF purely as an emissions-reduction story, it reframed it as an economic opportunity — a lens that broadens the coalition of interest beyond environmentalists to include farmers, foresters, regional development advocates, and economic diversification planners.

As the document itself argued: "Canada must go beyond an emissions reductions paradigm to think about how we build long-term support for deep decarbonization — by building a broad coalition of citizens and firms that benefit from climate action."

In 2024, the project was recognized with a Clean 50 Top Project Award — a national honour recognizing outstanding contributors to sustainable development in Canada, and the Roadmap had proved to be foundational to the long-anticipated SAF Blueprint released by Transport Canada.

"Compared to other countries, we have everything it takes to make SAF," Tauvette says. "We have players in all sectors of the value chain. But do we have the regulatory and policy environment to spur this growth? That's where the work continues."

The Roadmap identified the key policy gaps: SAF remains three to ten times more expensive than conventional jet fuel, and most of what has been used in Canada to date has been imported. What's needed is policy that simultaneously reduces aviation emissions, captures the economic benefits of domestic SAF production, uses abundant Canadian feedstocks, and keeps the sector competitive.

One of the Roadmap's most practical insights is that SAF is fundamentally a place-based opportunity. Establishing a viable supply chain means developing regional value chains that bring together feedstocks, refineries, and end-users in proximity — what the Roadmap calls "mini SAF ecosystems."

British Columbia's logging industry, long seeking new markets, produces forest residues that make excellent biofuel feedstock. Pulp and paper plant closures in Eastern Canada could be repositioned as SAF production opportunities within those same communities. Alberta's canola — versatile, widely grown, already integrated into global commodity markets — could give Canadian farmers a new, stable, domestic use.

"Suppliers take cost at aggregate level and apply it back at the pump," Tauvette explains. "In aviation, it's concentrated at the airport. If the cost gets too high, airlines can reroute and fly out of a US airport rather than a Canadian one (i.e. Seattle vs Vancouver), for instance. That's the competitive pressure we're trying to address with policy."

C-SAF has spent the last few years knocking down the barriers the Roadmap identified and followed up with two impact assessments: one for Canada and one for British Columbia. Awareness programs have been developed. Bio-development work has advanced, including in Vegreville, Alberta where the region received a BDO (Bioeconomy Development Opportunity Zone) 'A' rating. The Government of Alberta has been engaged on a Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) framework for canola-based SAF. Known "system blocks", as Tauvette describes them, have been progressively removed.

While the policy environment continues to develop, the sector is benefitting from some tailwinds. 

Canada's Clean Fuel Regulations, in place since 2023, created a credit market that allows SAF to serve as an opt-in compliance pathway. Parkland reported Canada's first domestic SAF production milestone. In early 2025, Airbus Canada began using SAF in its Mirabel operations and delivery flights.

But there’s also headwinds to navigate. "Once we see a clear pathway for supply and getting to scale, it becomes much easier to have a conversation about demand" says Tauvette. "But right now, Canada is still sending clean fuel money outside the country. The Clean Fuel Regulations are in place but we're importing biofuels to meet obligations rather than making biofuels in Canada. Environmental policy is forcing us to buy elsewhere, and that has to change." 

C-SAF is now pressing for two concrete federal actions. The first is a higher SAF multiplier within Canada's Clean Fuel Regulations — which would represent the first nationally-scoped policy signal specifically designed to pull SAF to market. The second is a dedicated SAF investment program with price certainty mechanisms, giving investors the confidence they need to commit capital at scale. Without that certainty, the economics remain stuck as well as final investment decisions.

Why This Matters Now for Canada 

In our globally connected world, aviation may just represent the most interconnected energy ecosystem. The recent geopolitical crisis that caused disruption in aviation fuel supply isn't a distant European problem. It has direct implications for Canada, and for the SAF opportunity. This predicament has put a spotlight on what energy security in aviation actually looks like, and Canada has the ingredients to be a stable supplier for jet fuel derived from domestic feedstocks, produced at scale, and backed by Canadian clean energy.  “Looking at different sources of energy where Canada can supply those markets — if we can build that together, that's a significant opportunity."  

The economic case is also sharper than it has ever been. Aviation and aerospace generate over $110 billion in economic activity and support more than 800,000 direct and indirect jobs in Canada. “The cost of SAF is directly related to the sector’s output and activity, but there is also a cost to not decarbonizing,” Tauvette says, “if you want to keep the economic benefits from the sector then support is needed to scale the SAF industry in a cost-effective way with an eye on staying competitive”.

The SAF story in Canada is, at its core, a story about what it takes to move a hard-to-decarbonize sector from concept to coordinated action.

It didn't start with a government mandate. This initiative started with a Fellow, working for a major airline, who had spent years sitting at the intersection of fuel and environment, who brought that perspective into the Energy Futures Lab's collaborative model, helped organize a pivotal workshop, catalyzed a challenge, inspired a coalition, and co-authored a national strategy that’s now functioning as the country's de facto aviation decarbonization blueprint.

It took an ecosystem with deep domain knowledge and credibility; a Lab with the convening capacity and collaborative methodology to bring disparate actors into alignment; a research partner with the analytical rigour to ground the vision in data; and an industry association willing to garner alignment before the market was ready to reward it.

"Aviation was one of the first global industries to come together with a climate action plan," Tauvette notes. The takeoff of SAF in Canada shows what it looks like when that intention meets coordinated, multi-stakeholder effort on the ground.

At a moment when jet fuel supply and warnings are no longer hypothetical and value chains are under pressure, when oil volatility is a front-page story, and the economics of SAF are finally beginning to shift, this work matters more than ever. Canada cleared the first runway. The question now is how fast SAF can take off.