Sustainable Aviation Fuel is produced in a sustainable process. There are several different eligible procedures to produce SAF. The aim of SAF is always to reuse carbon from existing sustainable biomass or gases and recycle it back into jet fuel so that fossil jet fuel refined from petroleum crude oil can be replaced.
The process is a first step towards closing the CO2 cycle: fuel is burned, but the carbon emitted is reabsorbed, e.g. through biomass, and transformed into fuel again. This way SAF saves 80% of CO2 emissions compared to fossil fuel, which is mainly due to CO2 emissions which are generated in the production and logistics process.
To become 100% carbon neutral, the manufacturing and supply processes of alternative fuels still need to be further optimized. Research on how to neutralize emissions entirely is currently underway.