Why Aviation’s Decarbonisation Challenge Is Brazil’s Biggest Opportunity

Aviation burns roughly 300 million tonnes of jet fuel every year. Less than 0.5% of that fuel is sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The EU has mandated that by 2050 aviation within its jurisdiction must reach 70% SAF — and that gap, between where the industry sits today and where European regulators require it to be, is not just a climate problem. It is the largest fuel supply transformation in the history of commercial aviation, and Brazil can seize the opportunity to meet this SAF challenge.

Aviation is one of the hardest industries to decarbonise, not because the will isn’t there, but because the physics leave almost no room to manoeuvre. You can electrify a car. You can hydrogen-power a truck. But a fully loaded long-haul aircraft needs energy density that no battery can realistically deliver within the next two decades. Sustainable aviation fuel is not one option among many. It is the only scalable drop-in solution for long-haul aviation, and it will remain so for the foreseeable future.

The EU requires 70% SAF by 2050. Today the industry sits at 0.5%. This article explains why that gap is more urgent than most people acknowledge, why cost is the defining battle, and why Brazil — not Europe — holds one of the keys to closing it.

How everyone agrees on sustainable aviation fuel, but nobody acts

Investors, energy developers, and aviation insiders have spent years talking about sustainable aviation fuel. The conversations follow a familiar pattern. Everyone agrees the problem is real. Everyone agrees SAF is the answer. Then most people go back to doing what they were doing before.

That gap between agreement and action is problematic. The window to build the SAF projects that will supply the market through 2030 and on to 2050 is not infinite — and it’s closing faster than the industry’s public statements suggest.

Aviation carries 4.5 billion passengers a year and keeps growing. Emissions are already back above 90% of their pre-pandemic peak. Sustainable aviation fuel can reduce lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions by 60 to 95% compared to fossil kerosene. It works in existing aircraft, with existing airport infrastructure, today. No redesign or rocket scientists required.

The IEA projects SAF reaching around 2% of aviation fuel demand by 2030. That sounds like progress until you realise it’s still less than a third of what the market actually needs. IATA’s Director General Willie Walsh puts it plainly: “SAF production is just 0.7% of aviation’s total fuel needs. The pace of progress must accelerate.” Earlier he said something harder to ignore: “Good intentions will not get us to net zero.” He’s right. And the cost problem makes everything worse.

The sustainable aviation fuel price gap is more than a detail

SAF cost airlines 3 to 6 times the price of conventional jet fuel in 2025, adding approximately $1.6 billion to the industry’s fuel bill. IAG CEO Luis Gallego has been public about it: the industry needs sustainable aviation fuel “at competitive prices” or the only realistic option is to push the mandates back. But the mandates are not moving. The EU’s ReFuelEU Aviation regulation locks in 2% SAF blending from 2025, 6% by 2030, 20% by 2035, and 70% by 2050 — applying to all flights departing from EU airports. Legal obligations with financial penalties attached. Airlines serving European routes have nowhere to hide.

SAF production cost is therefore not an academic question. It determines which projects get built, which investors commit, and whether the supply actually materialises in time to meet the mandates.

The SAF feedstock question that most people get wrong

Nearly 80% of current sustainable aviation fuel capacity relies on HEFA technology — used cooking oil and animal fats — limited by the feedstocks themselves. The feedstock is scarce, contested across multiple industries, and getting more expensive. You cannot build a multi- million ton SAF industry on restaurant grease.

This is where the technology debate goes wrong. People argue HEFA versus Alcohol-to-Jet versus Power-to-Liquid as if it’s a horse race. It’s not. The real question is what the raw material costs and whether you can source it reliably for 20 years. Power-to-Liquid may matter eventually, but it needs vast amounts of green electricity at prices that don’t yet exist at scale. Alcohol-to-Jet competes directly with food supply chains. Neither solves the 2030 sustainable aviation fuel supply problem.

Anaerobic digestion of purpose-grown biomass is a different story entirely. According to WEF and ICAO benchmarks, this SAF production route is significantly cheaper (a factor 2 to 5) than competing SAF production technologies. The process — biodigestion, methanol synthesis, sustainable aviation fuel conversion — uses mature industrial technology with no experimental risk and well-understood capital costs. According to the WEF, most SAF prices are projected to remain three to five times higher than conventional jet fuel until 2030. A production route that structurally undercuts that benchmark like digestion doesn’t just compete in the SAF market — it captures it.

Why Brazil can solve Europe’s sustainable aviation fuel problem

Europe has the demand, the SAF mandates, and the airlines. What it doesn’t have is land or climate. European farmland is either feeding people, protected by environmental law, or both. Redirecting it to energy crops immediately triggers food-versus-fuel political battles no government wants. And even where land exists, Northern European biomass yields are seasonal and modest — produced for six months of the year at yields a fraction of what tropical climates deliver continuously. The economics of European domestic SAF feedstock production simply don’t work at the scale required.

According to EMBRAPA (a federal research institute of Brazils Ministry of Agriculture and Livestok) Brazil has 140 million hectares of degraded pastureland. Land cleared for cattle decades ago that has since lost productivity and currently generates almost nothing economically. It is not forest. It is not food-producing. Restoring it for biomass cultivation improves its ecological status — which is precisely why it can qualify under the EU’s REDIII regulation as a compliant sustainable aviation fuel feedstock source when certified to recognised standards such as ISCC or RSB.

Year-round tropical growing conditions produce biomass continuously, at per-hectare yields that European farmers cannot match regardless of inputs. That advantage is geographical and permanent — it will still be there in 2040 and 2050. Brazil actively supports exactly this kind of land restoration. The policy environment accelerates SAF feedstock development rather than blocking it.

The logistics complete the picture. Northeast Brazil to Rotterdam is under two weeks by sea on established shipping routes. The export infrastructure already exists. No new ports needed, no untested corridors.

2030 is a checkpoint, the 2050 SAF mandate is the destination

Most attention goes to 2030 because that’s where the first meaningful EU SAF mandate thresholds sit. But 2030 is not the end point — it’s an early checkpoint on a multi-decade transformation.

Sustainable aviation fuel demand is expected to nearly triple to 40 million tonnes by 2035. With expected production capacity of just 18 million tonnes by 2030, that leaves a gap of more than 20 million tonnes to close in five years. By 2050, with the EU’s 70% SAF blending obligation in force and other major aviation markets — the UK, Japan, Singapore — moving in the same direction with their own frameworks, the scale of production required is an order of magnitude beyond anything that exists today. Passenger numbers are projected to double from current levels by 2042, meaning the absolute volume of jet fuel needed keeps growing even as the sustainable share climbs.

IATA confirms there is enough sustainable feedstock globally to achieve net zero aviation emissions by 2050 without causing land use changes — but significant barriers remain, including slow technology rollout and competition for feedstock from other sectors.

A well-structured sustainable aviation fuel production facility runs for 20 to 25 years. The projects funded now are the ones supplying the market through the 2030s and 2040s. IATA is unambiguous: every action delayed is an opportunity missed. Investors who move into SAF project development now are not chasing a short-term compliance spike. They are positioning for a long-duration infrastructure asset with contracted revenue, stable feedstock costs, and regulatory demand that only increases over time. That profile is rare anywhere in the energy transition.

Sustainable aviation fuel projects needs to be built today

Aviation will not decarbonise through conference commitments or good intentions. It will decarbonise through sustainable aviation fuel projects — funded, certified, and operating at scale. The projects financed this decade define who supplies the aviation sector through the 2030s, 2040s and beyond.

MVAventures is developing one of those SAF production projects. The case for why it needs to exist — and why Brazil is where it has to be built — has never been clearer.

If you work in aviation, project finance, or the energy transition and want to understand what investment-grade sustainable aviation fuel development looks like in practice, contact us