Announcing! The Winners of the Inaugural SAFTAs
The first-ever SAFTAs took place at the Sustainable Aviation Futures Congress, bringing the industry together for an evening dedicated to celebrating the people, projects and organisations driving real progress in sustainable aviation.
Across a highly competitive field of finalists, our judges recognised outstanding leadership, innovation, collaboration and impact across the SAF and aviation decarbonisation landscape.
We are delighted to share this year’s winners, along with the judges’ reflections on why each was selected. Congratulations to all of our winners, and to every finalist helping to move the industry forward.
Startup to Watch
This category recognises an early-stage company with the potential to reshape the future of sustainable aviation. Among a strong field of finalists, the judges were particularly impressed by the winner’s ability to tackle one of eSAF’s most important cost challenges: unlocking low-cost, abundant biomass feedstocks without relying on high-temperature thermal processes. They highlighted the company’s distinctive approach, its potential to change market dynamics, and its role in helping make lignocellulosic SAF a more economically viable pathway.
The winner is: Ki Hydrogen
Decarbonisation Rising Star
This award celebrates an individual already making a clear and meaningful contribution to aviation decarbonisation, while showing the promise to become an even greater force in the years ahead. The winner stood out to the judges for her broad industry impact, her ability to build connections across the sector, and her strong commitment to collaboration through a global network. In a category focused on future leadership, the judges saw someone already helping to shape the industry’s direction.
The winner is: Amy Strang, Environment and Sustainability Marketing Manager, Airbus
Award accepted by Julien Manhes on Amy’s behalf
SAF Infrastructure Advancer Award
Corporate Sustainability Leadership Award
Sponsored by Worley
Infrastructure is often where ambition becomes reality, and this award celebrates the organisations helping prepare aviation systems for SAF scale-up. The judges recognised this winner for going well beyond what is traditionally expected, combining direct operational decarbonisation with a powerful incentive scheme to accelerate SAF adoption. Judges highlighted its leadership, its measurable reductions in energy use, its contribution to increased SAF uptake, and its commitment to greater reporting transparency.
The winner is: Heathrow Airport
Sponsored by Future Energy Global
The Corporate Sustainability Leadership Award recognises an organisation helping turn ambition into credible climate action across the aviation value chain. The winner impressed the judges through the breadth of its stakeholder group, its forward-thinking approach to Book & Claim, and its work to make SAF transactions accessible to smaller customers and emerging producers. The judges highlighted its role in building market confidence, supporting high-quality standards, and connecting the stakeholders needed to finance medium- and long-term SAF production.
The winner is: Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance
Award accepted by Denise Pronk, Head of Sustainability, Royal Schiphol Group on behalf of Heathrow Airport
The Exceptional Woman in SAF Award
Sponsored by PA Consulting
This award honours a woman whose leadership is advancing the SAF sector while opening pathways for more women to contribute, lead and succeed in the industry. The judges recognised this year’s winner as a pioneer in one of the sector’s toughest SAF pathways, combining vision, strategic thinking and practical leadership. They highlighted her central role in Project SkyPower, its influence on European eSAF decision-making, and her work in building a strong female leadership team around a highly ambitious project.
The winner is: Amy Hebert from Arcadia eFuels
Project Partner Award
No SAF project reaches scale through one organisation alone. This award celebrates the partner through financing, consultation, technology, and associations that are creating the commercial, technical and market foundations needed for aviation decarbonisation. The judges felt this year’s winner stood out for building an ecosystem that brings together Scope 1 and Scope 3 offtakers, supporting one of the most important industrial-scale PtL milestones in recent SAF history. Its partnership model was recognised as a template that could help de-risk and accelerate future projects globally.
The winner is: Infinium
PtL / eSAF Project of the Year
This award celebrates a project helping move Power-to-Liquids and eSAF from promise towards real-world deployment. The judges recognised this year’s winner as a major project with the potential to have a dramatic effect on eSAF acceptance once operational. They also highlighted the strength of its ecosystem-building approach, particularly the work done to secure supply, bring partners together and reduce project risk across a complex emerging pathway.
The winner is: Power2X eFuels Rotterdam
SAF & Aviation Decarbonisation Technology Innovator
Technology innovation is essential to making SAF and wider aviation decarbonisation commercially achievable. In this category, the judges selected a winner with multiple advanced platforms, broad feedstock flexibility and technologies already moving into deployment. They noted the company’s continued optimisation of existing solutions, its development of new offerings, and its ability to innovate across the value chain. The judges felt this commitment is helping make SAF and eSAF projects more feasible at scale.
The winner is: Honeywell UOP
Decarbonisation Leadership & Advocacy Award
The Decarbonisation Leadership & Advocacy Award celebrates individuals whose work is helping build the market, standards and confidence needed for aviation decarbonisation to scale. The judges recognised this year’s winner for their direct and demonstrable impact on SAF adoption, their role in raising awareness, and their contribution to industry practice through demand aggregation, standard setting and global travel system integration. Their leadership was described as visionary, scalable and highly influential in building support for SAF.
The winner is: Nora Lovell Marchant from AMEX GBT
Airline Sustainability Excellence Award
Sponsored by Jackson Square Aviation
This category recognises airlines and other carriers making sustainability part of their operations, procurement strategy and customer offer. The judges selected a winner that stood out for its systematic integration of sustainability across its activities, its strong focus on voluntary SAF procurement, and its ability to drive immediate market impact. They highlighted the scale of its SAF progress, its customer integration, its additionality, and its work on non-CO2 efforts as evidence of genuine market leadership.
The winner is: DHL
Award accepted by Nicole Stautter, Senior Director of Global Sustainability, AMEX GBT on Nora’s behalf
Sustainable Aviation Fuel Project of the Year
Sponsored by EY SpA
This award celebrates a SAF project with the ambition, scale and complexity to move the sector forward. The judges selected a winner they described as a full-scale project capable of helping address some of the major uncertainties that make advanced SAF production so challenging. They highlighted its ambition around emissions reduction, its production scale, and its potential to become an important reference point for the next generation of advanced SAF projects.
The winner is: Johnson Matthey & DG Fuels Louisiana SAF Project
