This Year in SAF: 2025’s Turning Point — and Why Certainty Must Come Next
Clay Marbry
Senior Vice President
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Natural State Renewables
2025 will be remembered as the year sustainable aviation fuel finally began to scale. After a decade of pilot schemes and policy debate, the global aviation sector has entered a new phase, one driven by firm regulation, clear ambition from airlines, and the rapid build-out of SAF projects across multiple pathways.
For those of us working to bring new production online, the momentum is real. But there are risks as well. Events this year suggest that, despite unprecedented progress, political uncertainty still plays a notable role in shaping SAF investment.
Regulation Is Moving in the Right Direction, and Fast
The past 18 months have seen the most supportive policy signals the SAF industry has ever received.
The UK has led from the front, putting its SAF mandate into law and giving the market a timetable that matters: 2% in 2025, 10% by 2030 and 22% by 2040. The UK’s decision to pair this mandate with a revenue certainty mechanism is unique globally: a recognition that early-stage industries need predictable conditions, not just aspirations.
Europe has also stepped up, with ReFuelEU Aviation now live. A binding 6% SAF requirement by 2030 and a trajectory to 70% by 2050 is already reshaping demand curves for airlines and suppliers.
And globally, airlines themselves have set a tone of ambition that often surpasses government expectation. Many now have 10% SAF targets for 2030, and several have signed multi-year offtake agreements that would have been unthinkable five years ago. Engine manufacturers and OEMs are certifying fleets for 100% SAF. Infrastructure owners are preparing for higher blends.
The direction of travel is no longer in doubt: aviation is preparing for a SAF-powered future.
A Wave of Projects Is Taking Shape from the US to the UK
This policy foundation is enabling real deployment. Across North America and Europe, dozens of first-of-a-kind and next-of-a-kind facilities have entered the final stages of engineering, financing or construction. The diversity of technologies and feedstocks coming forward mirrors exactly what the sector needs: Fischer–Tropsch, alcohol-to-jet, gasification routes, and advanced pyrolysis all now have commercial backers and blue-chip customers.
Natural State Renewables is proud to be part of this next chapter. Our flagship project in Arkansas will convert waste wood residues into high quality SAF, with a delivery horizon aligned to the UK’s 2030 mandate. We’ve spent years building a robust feedstock position and a pathway designed to meet the world’s most stringent sustainability standards. It is exactly the kind of project mandates were designed to enable.
As a U.S. producer, we see a tremendous opportunity to work with partners across the UK and Europe to help meet early mandate requirements while domestic capacity scales. Our goal is to complement — not compete with — the region’s growing SAF ecosystem by providing reliable, certified volumes that support near-term demand and strengthen supply-chain resilience as new plants come online.
Across the sector, the progress is striking. Capital is flowing. Technical risk is falling. Producers, airlines and suppliers are collaborating in ways that would have once seemed impossible.
But Momentum Does Not Guarantee Deployment
Political uncertainty has become a significant consideration for SAF investment. Behind the headlines and policy announcements, producers face a common reality: SAF facilities are large, capital-intensive projects that depend on long-term confidence in the regulatory environment.
And right now, that confidence remains fragile.
Across multiple jurisdictions, including those most committed to SAF, there is still uncertainty on future incentives, programme design, and the longevity of support. Changes in government, budget pressures, and shifting political narratives all add risk premiums to project finance.
Investors tell us the same thing: the technology risk is manageable; the market risk is understood; but the political and policy risks remain material.
Without long-term clarity on sustainability criteria, revenue support, accounting rules, and mandate enforcement, producers cannot reach final investment decision at the pace the sector demands. The result is delayed projects, higher capital costs, and slower emissions reductions for aviation.
In short: the key challenge for SAF today is less about engineering and more about policy consistency.
A Strong 2025, But the Market Must Now Move Faster
The good news is that these risks are solvable. Governments have already shown they are willing to take bold, industry-shaping decisions. The UK mandate, in particular, demonstrates that political leadership can give investors exactly what they need: a predictable, rules-based environment where long-term capital can move with confidence.
What comes next is simple but urgent:
clearer long-term signals on revenue support
stability in sustainability and feedstock rules
alignment across jurisdictions to reduce compliance friction
political consistency across electoral cycles
If governments can deliver that certainty, the industry will deliver the rest. We have the feedstocks. We have the pathways. We have the airline demand. What we need now is a policy environment that stays stable for the lifespan of an SAF plant.
Conclusion: A Once-in-a-Generation Opportunity, If We Seize It
2025 has been a turning point. Mandates are in place. Demand is locked in. SAF projects are reaching maturity. The sector has never been more aligned or more ambitious.
But to translate that ambition into tangible decarbonization — steel in the ground, supply into airports, emissions reductions at scale — we must turn momentum into permanence. That means long-term political certainty and globally coherent policy frameworks.
The UK has taken major steps in the right direction, and that leadership matters. If other jurisdictions follow suit, global SAF deployment will accelerate dramatically.
For producers like Natural State Renewables, the message is clear: the opportunity is enormous, the technology is ready, but investment decisions depend on confidence. With stable, predictable policy, we can unlock the next wave of SAF supply and help aviation deliver the climate transition this decade demands.