Sylvera

Scope 3 retirements on SAF certificates in the first nine months of 2026 were 2.3 times all of 2025. And October has already beaten every quarter on the SAFc Registry, with Microsoft alone retiring 17,000 tonnes on 19 October. More than fifty companies have made a claim this year, most of them for the first time: Novo Nordisk, Bain, Atlassian, EY, many more. Looking into companies’ sustainability reports shows the same trend. Microsoft's SAF certificates took around 74,000 tCO2e off its business travel line last year, about 25% of it, up from 25,000 two years earlier. Netflix retired 4,300 tCO2e of SAFc in 2025, 4x the year before. Deloitte's programme has grown every year since FY22. So why are companies paying $140 to $300 per tCO2e for SAF certificates, when removal credits range from around $18 a tonne for ARR to $169 for biochar? Because the claims corporates are buying are not the same, and they play different roles. Under SBTi V2, a SAF certificate is the market instrument utilised in Scope 3, accounted for separately from the physical inventory. A carbon credit sits under Ongoing Emissions Responsibility for residual emissions. Corporates are increasingly focussing on Scope 3 levers to decarbonise, as well as carbon credits for residual emissions. For example, Netflix retired 4,300 tCO2e of SAFc alongside 1.09 million tCO2e of credits last year. Different instruments, different jobs. Other examples of how corporates are approaching this: Atlassian's travel emissions came in at 135% over target as headcount grew, so it introduced an internal carbon fee to fund SAFc purchases and made its first claim in Q1. Bain started by covering every North American recruiting flight and now targets 5% of its jet fuel as SAF by 2030. Even at Sylvera, we purchased SAFc for business travel for the first time this year, in addition to carbon credits for our SBTi target. One caveat: the two registries used for the graphs and numbers cover about 60% of market volume. How are you weighing up SAFc purchases for Scope 3? What pricing are you using for your future planning, and how are you trading off against carbon credits for residual emissions?

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