The SAF Podcast
Welcome to The SAF Podcast, the only podcast on the internet that exclusively covers sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). So if you want to find out the real issues and challenges are for commercialising and scaling SAF production, look no further.
Every week we will be hearing from senior industry leaders who are actively shaping the future of SAF and aviation.
Hosted by Oscar Henderson and brought to you by the team at SAF Investor. Connect with us at www.safinvestor.com
The SAF Podcast
Future Energy Global - SAF's new year's resolutions for 2026
This week Natasha Mann, Future Energy Global (FEG) comes back on the Podcast to discuss her busy last few years, we wrap up SAF in 2025 and look forward to what to expect from 2026.
We begin by looking at all the deals FEG have signed over the last two since since its founding in 2024. Offtakes with corporates and airlines, the importance of voluntary scope 3 customers to industry scale, how aggregating demand is a crucial component of scaling SAF production and availability globally, and how this can only grow if the supply chain for the scope 1 emissions is also in place.
Natasha gives her rating out of 10 for the SAF industry in 2025, shares some of her highlights from the year and the headwinds that the industry had to work against, especially in the US. We also attempt to pin her down on her favourite region in 2025. Have to listen to find out what she chose.
We end the episode with a look at 2026, what we can expect from FEG in 2026 and her expectations for global industry development in the year ahead. Natasha also gives us her New Year's resolutions for 2026.
You can catch more of Future Energy Global at SAF Investor London on the 24th-25th February, so if you are a producer, airline, corporate customer is a great place to connect with their team. Find out more here: https://www.safinvestor.com/event/148588/saf-investor-london-2026-2/
Hello and welcome to another episode of Natash Podcast. I'm delighted this week to be joined by someone who first came on the podcast almost two years ago, Natasha Mann from Future Energy Global. And the first time Natasha was on the podcast, she was just launching Future Energy Global. And she was here explaining all about the concept and what they were trying to do and how they were trying to accelerate production, aggregate demand, and build that side of the equation. And since then she's been extremely busy. It's fair to say. So, Natasha, it was great to have you. Um Happy New Year. And how are you?
SPEAKER_02:Thank you very much, Oscar. It's great to uh it's great to be back on the SAF Investor podcast again. It has been two years, and you're right, I have been really busy, but I'm delighted to be back and tell you all about what's been going on over the last two years. And happy new year to you too. It's still January, so here in France we can still say happy new year.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. So I'm just going to keep wishing everyone happy new year to the end of January now. That's enough justification for me. So the plan for this podcast is we're going to do a very quick overview of Future Energy Global. If some people want more detailed information, they can go back to our first podcast that we did with Natasha. And then we're going to look over some of what's been going on at Future Energy Global, some of the announcements you've done, and look at the ongoing strategy for this year and going forward. And then I thought we'd do a sort of 2025 Spotify wrapped style staff wrapped conversation and then do a 2026 projection, what we're hoping and expecting for this year. So that's the rough plan. So let's go back to the beginning. Do you just want to give us a very, very quick recap of Future Energy Global for those that haven't necessarily listened to the first one or have forgotten because it's been two years since it came out?
SPEAKER_02:Sure, sure, absolutely. So excited to take a look back on the on the last two years and take a look forwards towards 2026 and beyond. So as you mentioned in your introduction there, Oscar, uh Future Energy Global launched in January 2024. We launched to help accelerate the decarbonization of the uh of the aviation sector. Uh, we are a market accelerator. Uh, and let me explain what that means in kind of more detailed terms. So, this idea of being a market accelerator, I call it a bridge. It's really the bridge between the suppliers and the buyers. So, if you think about the market, we've got about 300 suppliers or supply projects in SAF that can supply the SAF. And then on the other side of the coin, you've got 300 airlines that can buy the SAF and well over a thousand or corporates that can buy the SAF credits, the Scope 3 credits as well, either from the airlines or from somebody else. It is completely inefficient for these 1,300 plus buyers to be going to each and every single SAF project or SAF supplier to try and figure out how they are going to do their carbon abatement uh each year. So it makes more much more sense to have that bridge in there. What we are is we're an aggregator then of all these SAF projects, you know, making our selection, putting them into a portfolio, and an aggregator of all the buyers. So coming to the SAF suppliers with those who are willing to buy supply. So that creates another portfolio on the other supply, or the other side of things of SAF buyers. Um, what does this all mean? What this does in terms of coming back to our original goal, which is to accelerate the decarbonization of the aviation sector, what it does is it makes decision making easier for all of those procurement people on the buy side. So now all of a sudden they have a one-stop shop where they can say, I have emissions that are all over the world, you know, in terms of X, Y, and Z percentage, in terms of these different regions. Uh, I would like to tell a certain narrative, I have a preference for certain SAF producers, certain SAF types, certain feedstock types, um, and we can work with them to kind of create that plan. So it makes decision making easier and faster for all of those procurement people. And then on the other side of the coin, it also de-risks the market on both sides. So when you have SAF suppliers who are looking for buyers and particularly off takers, so for the moment we're only talking about the here and now, we're not talking about the future, okay? It de-risks the market for those SAF suppliers because, as we all know, those of us who've been in the airline industry, you know, for 10, 15, 20, I'm one of those 25-year people in terms of being in the airline industry, it is very cyclical, and airlines can go in and out of the market, meaning that some of them can go bankrupt, there can be consolidation, uh, all kinds of things can happen in the airline market. And what a SAF supplier doesn't want is to sign a 10, 15-year offtake, even a five-year offtake with an airline, kind of put all of their eggs in one or two baskets, and then have the, you know, the terrible realization that that offtake might not be able to happen because there's been some fluctuations in the market and with those airlines. So by working with us, we de-risk that process. Because if that happens, once you start to build a portfolio of 10, 15, 20, 300 airlines, you can start to move south between different airlines. So, what does this all mean at the end of the day for the market? Okay, it speeds up the decision-making process, it de-risks the market. What does that do for capital? It unblocks the capital. Now all of a sudden you start to get the capital moving in, and that's what we've seen happen. So, you know, that's what we are. We're a markets accelerator.
SPEAKER_00:It's it's really interesting because a lot of the time when people talk about off-take, they talk about it with all the risk being on the side of the producer trying to develop these projects. It's very rare to actually have a conversation around actually there is risk from the producer side in the partnerships that they're signing with the airlines, because of, as you mentioned, the psychical nature of aviation, and there's no guarantee an airline is going to be operational 10, 15, 5 years down the line. And it's it's something that hasn't necessarily come up very often, sort of flipping the script like that.
SPEAKER_02:No, exactly. And I think we we tend to, you know, we kind of tend to look at this market uh in terms of under other renewable, the development of other renewable energy markets. Uh so electricity, for example, you know, moving from away from coal and away from oil and going more towards renewable sources like solar and wind and so on and so on. Those off-take buyers are much different than these off-take buyers, the airlines. Um, you know, everybody needs electricity, and it's not necessarily cyclical, right? Um, but the airline industry is very cyclical. You can have things like COVID and SARS and all kinds of things. Uh, just seasonality alone uh can have big impacts uh in this industry. So the offtakers are a much different profile than what we've seen in the electricity market.
SPEAKER_00:You said at the beginning that you've been you've been very busy. And it's clear to see with all the agreements you've signed with various different stakeholders across different production pathways, scope three, customers, airlines, fuel blenders. So do you just want to take us through this that we're almost doing therapy now for Future Energy Global. We're giving catharsis to look over the last the last two years about everything that's gone on.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. Happy to do that. So, as you said, we've been around for two years, and there was really it was almost like a two-step process for us. The first year, 2024, was all about putting the foundations in place. So, you know, it was taking a look at were we going to trade physical fuel or were we just gonna focus on the book and claim side of things? We really believe that the acceleration of the market, the key to the acceleration of the market is focused, should be focused on book and claim. And that's where we decided, you know, to lay our foundations. Um, so that was all about getting certified as a book and claim trader with the various certifying um bodies, RSB and ISCC. And that is not a it's not a small task. Then it was all about going to the market and saying, hey, okay, we think that this is the best way to accelerate the market. You know, would you be willing to buy some book and claim um certificates? And so that was all about talking to everybody involved: the suppliers, um, the airlines, and then the corporate buyers. What we realized in 2024 was there was still a ton of education that needed to happen. Um, and that education process basically was done in a collaborative way with all of these different stakeholders and partners together. So that by the end of 2024, you know, kind of the training wheels were off. Uh, we were ready to kind of start, you know, moving a little bit faster, and then we started transacting. Now, transacting in this world means coming up with contracts that have never been done. Okay, so putting together kind of a SAFS scope three contract for some of our first buyers, those are Jackson Square Aviation, PA Consulting, you know, those were first-of-a-kind contracts for us. Then kind of scaling that and moving into the bigger corporate arena with Microsoft. And Microsoft, we learned an amazing amount from Microsoft who had already been purchasing SAF scope threes from uh certificates from airlines. This was really the first time they were buying it from a market accelerator like ourselves. We worked on that deal for a good six months before it actually came about. Um, and we're honored to have had you know Microsoft as a customer. Um, but just working in the scope three space, you know, to develop this market is just really not enough. You have to be able to sell scope one certificates for airlines to be able to book and claim. Okay. So what we learned in our first year setting the foundations is that many airlines just can't get their hands on the actual physical SAF for various reasons. They can't get their hands on it because it's not available locally. If they can, if they can actually ship it into wherever they are, either by road, uh, rail or sea, they may not be able to get it blended. Uh, their own contracts for Jet A may not allow that SAF to come in in the timeframe that those are in. So there's huge headwinds to actually get physical SAF, you know, into where you are. So it really makes sense that those airlines that want SAF at least have the option of being able to buy scope one certificates that have been uplifted by someone else somewhere else. Now, the challenge with that though, that we realized right away, is that that wasn't being done. So, whereas we thought potentially it was being done, we realized that around you know March it actually wasn't being done. So we set off on a pass to start signing off takes with suppliers that could do the blending locally, that could do the distribution locally, and essentially they would sell that SAF as Jedi, and we would strip off the environmental attributes. So, kind of the first of a kind um environmental attribute offtake in the future that we signed was with Givo. Giva's an amazing partner. And I'll never forget the day that uh I was at the airline economics ESG conference back in 2024, end of January, and their head of marketing came up to me, Andy Schaefer, uh, after I'd gotten off the stage after 20 minutes. He literally grabbed my arm and he said, We have to talk, we're gonna do a deal with you. Um, and since then, you know, Givo has worked with us to try and figure out this space in terms of environmental attributes offtake until we actually did that deal way back in March. So that's a deal in the future. What we really needed then was we needed a deal in the now. Uh so we took those learnings, we took that type of contract, and then we applied it to a new supplier, Montana Renewables, again, super duper partner. Um, yeah, and I think we signed that uh towards the end of the first quarter, beginning of the second quarter, around April, May. Um, so then all of a sudden now we had the supply of those scope one certificates. Okay. So first you need the supply, and then you need the buyers. When we went out to actually start talking to the airlines uh through that whole process, what we realized, which was holding them back, is that there's no clear guidance from SBTI and GHG in terms of how they could account for those book and claim units. And the issue with that is that those organizations are great, but they don't necessarily move at the same speed of as Future Energy Global. Uh so we had to work with the existing kind of governing um bodies like RSB and come up with an accounting approach for airlines so that they didn't have to do it themselves. And we did a lot of work between April, May, and June, uh, July and August on that kind of accounting approach. And the the fruit of that effort is that in September we signed a book and claim uh pilot with seven airlines. Some of those airlines are DHL, um SAS, Foreir, who works in the in the um in the um business jet space, and Atlas Air, and a couple of ones that are still unnamed, but will be coming out soon, you know, a few corporates as well. Uh for us that was you know that was a huge effort that was really bringing the collaborative energy of all of these stakeholders, saying we can't wait until 2027 or 2029 um, you know, to have to have that guidance from SBTI uh and from GHD. We need something now, and we put that into place. Uh, and then by the end of you know 2025, what we ended up doing was trading about 35,000 tons of CO2E. Uh 12 that that's the equivalent of about 12,000 tons of staff, um, which I think is a huge accomplishment, you know, if I can say, because in the space of pretty much was about six months, we captured about 0.2% of the market. For a new startup coming in, you know, only in 2020, 24, um, and achieving that, you know, by the end of 2025, uh, and also being profitable by the end of 2025, you know, I think that we have to be really proud of ourselves and proud of this kind of collaborative effort that we did for the whole industry.
SPEAKER_00:It sounds like you've had an awesome year or couple of years of finding partners, running into hurdles, trying to overcome said hurdles, then finding a new partner because that door's been opened, and then you've run into another problem, and then you've looked to solve that one. So it's been a challenging but very rewarding two years, I think is it's fair to say.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:So looking sort of more into the future now, what's 2026 got in store and sort of beyond what's sort of the next hurdle you're sort of you're trying to sort of work through and and overcome? And who are you sort of looking at and where's the trajectory for the next year?
SPEAKER_02:Okay, 2026. I mean, we are super excited about 2026. Um, because I think we've got it figured out. I think we've got it figured out in terms of how to scale the industry. Not only have we figured it out.
SPEAKER_00:No more hurdles, no more hurdles, we've got a way. You're saying it's all folded then.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, no. I I wish, you know, like I wish, yeah. I wish there was like a bag full of money flowing in, you know, and we would just we'd just be able to go. No, no, no, no. I wish we had it all figured out, but we don't. We're actually now into kind of like the second phase of startup mode, right? So the first phase is all about trying to figure it out and proving your model. And we have clearly done that in a profitable way. Um, so proof is there, the transactions have been done. I have to say the customers you know that we've attracted are all blue chip customers, and all of that has been kind of very carefully considered from a capital perspective, right? So this idea of having blue chip customers is all about the next phase of growth, uh, which is scale. So 2026 for us is going to be all about scale. Scale, scale, scale, scale, scale, right? So doing the same thing that we've been doing, but repeating it. So it's about repeatability, uh, it's about growing the team, but it's also about, you know, not going too fast because you want to make sure that you maintain efficiency. If you grow too fast and you become too fat, you slow down. That's not what we're trying to do. So it's this delicate balance of maintaining the same efficiency, repeating what you've done, but growing the team so that you can continue to scale. So, in order to do that, what you need is you need to raise capital. Okay. Now, raising capital, as we've seen for the first time, you know, we raised our seed. Um, this was with aviation partners, you know, great investor from a financial backing perspective. Um, but that's kind of one group of in of a type of investor that likes to come in at the seed round. Right. As you go into a series A round, it's a much different ballgame. There you're trying to attract more capital, so we'll be looking for more than$2 million. Um, and you're starting to touch on kind of different types of investors. If they're gonna be, you know, putting more capital kind of into the pot, um, you know, there's more expectations coming from them. I think we've put a lot of checks in the boxes in terms of the type of customers that we've had, um, the transactions that we've done, the the you know, the proof that we've done, um, you know, but they're gonna be looking at how are you gonna be able to do this now quickly going forward? Um, there's also the give and take from our side as well. It's not just about raising capital, raising money from those new investors that we're gonna invite in, kind of into our space, into our family. We're also gonna be looking for strategic investors, you know, the give and take. What are you coming to the table with? You know, are you coming in, you know, with projects? Are you coming in with customers? Are you coming in with governance, with guidance, with with all of these different things? But no matter what, at the end of the day, you know, all of those capital providers are gonna be looking for something which all startups have to do once they've gotten off the ground, which is governance. You know, what is your structure? What are your policies? What structure do you have in place? You know, what do you do to make sure that you don't go off the rails? What's your growth plan? And so on and so on and so on. You know, so 2026 is all gonna be about that. It's gonna be scaling, but scaling in a in a reasonable way, scaling in a in a in a way which um which is very structured, uh, and inviting the the right capital partners in. So that's kind of the focus on FEG, Future Energy Global. Um, and then the focus on the market, in order for all of that to happen, is the part of the market that I think really needs focus on, which is the scope three market. So, you know, there's there are some airlines that will get up publicly, uh, so this is no secret, but it's the world's worst kept secret. There are some airlines. Which will get a public key and say we will not pay for staff. We don't have the budget for it. It makes us uncompetitive. They have all kinds of different reasons. So, you know, the true buyers that are that are paying, you know, the lion's share of the cost of the premium are the scope three market. And for the time being, that is largely untapped. We've got great players, great players in the market, the likes of Microsoft, McKinsey, and so on and so on. Um, but they've set the bar pretty high in terms of what percentage of their emissions they abate. Uh, it goes well beyond kind of where the staff market is. So SAF accounts for you know only a couple percent of the actual fuel uptake. Their targets go well beyond that. And they should because they're, you know, they're pioneers in the market and they're trying to lead the market to pull the other corporates through. But because that bar is so high, you've got other corporates that want to enter into the market to say, my goodness, you know, the budget that they that they are able to allocate to SAF procurement on a book and claim basis for those scope three credits and certificates is just not something that I'm able to do. And I don't want to come in kind of in a small way because I'm afraid of greenwashing. And I think that we as a as a market, as an industry, have to change that narrative. I think we have to work on that narrative to kind of reassure those buyers, no, no, no, no, you are right on track. If you're tracking with SAF uptake and better, that's great. You know, if everybody could do that, you know, then the market would be solved, right? And we spoke about this, I spoke about this in particular, you know, at the last um at the last um RSB conference. There is really this joint effort, I think, in the market that you're gonna see happening from all different stakeholders, where I think this year we're gonna work on that narrative and try and invite more corporate and um corporate buyers to come in um innovate their missions with SAF insets.
SPEAKER_00:I want to pick up on a couple of things there. You mentioned at the beginning that you're looking at doing replicable amounts of deals, you're looking to replicate what you've done sort of last year in the terms of the deals. Are you looking at more of the same, or are you looking more and bigger scale deals as well, or sort of just looking at doing some deals of bigger scale? So you're sort of growing through the scale of those deals or scaling through the number of deals, which in turn grows the amount that you're that you're doing.
SPEAKER_02:Do you see the sort of or absolutely? I think we kind of did it backwards. You know, I think we went for kind of the big deals, a big deal for some everything is relative, so big deals for for somebody like ourselves, right? When when absolutely, you know, um was buying scope one certificates, the fact that we were able to get you know these this number of airlines out, um this number this number of airlines to purchase scope one certificates, I think those were big deals. Now what we're doing is we're actually trying to grow. Remember how I spoke about two portfolios, you got a portfolio of SAF suppliers and you have a portfolio of buyers, right? Now we're looking to do any size of deal with new buyers, to do repeats with our with our current buyers, now they know that it works, and to grow those as the market grows, you know, all the way until 2030, right? To be able to have kind of off takes for FEG, okay, over multi-year deals. But we're also looking to entice new buyers into this space. And we do have some to announce. So because now we've become so efficient in terms of the way that we can do these deals, you know, we can go all the way down to 10 tons if an airline just wants to dip their toe in the water, so to speak. Um, they've got a corporate buyer and they're trying to figure out kind of their local market. We've just done a deal like that that we'll we'll announce shortly. Um, because as soon as you they've figured it out, the biggest hurdle is for them to figure out this space, right? And that can take months and unfortunately even years. Once they've got it figured out, then they just need to do it once to understand that it's repeatable. So we're going to be looking at doing bigger deals with our existing customers, big deals with new kind of blue chip customers again, newer blue chip customers coming in, but small deals for people that want to try on um book and claim.
SPEAKER_00:Do you want to announce any of those new deals here?
SPEAKER_02:No, I won't, I won't, I won't take, won't, won't let you take the thunder out of it. We'll keep that as a separate announcement so that our customer I thought you were gonna take the bait for a second.
SPEAKER_00:I thought I had you for a second.
SPEAKER_02:Nope, can't trick me.
SPEAKER_00:So I want to change slightly off Future Energy Global and sort of look more widely at sort of the market and how the industry is developing. So I want to sort of first off look back at 2025. And if you were to give it a mark out of 10 for how the industry did, what what would you give it?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I I think given all the challenges, the the industry did pretty well. So if I have to put a mark on it, I would give it a mark of seven out of ten. Yeah, like if you really say, like, well, you gotta put a number on it, right? Which I think is pretty good. Pretty good. Exactly. So the reason why is because the market got stunned. Let me use that word. It really got stunned. Uh when we started off in 2025, um, it was before you know Trump got elected. It was before the so-called Trump era, you know, and the horizon was bright, right? And then all of a sudden, we got stunned with not just the election of Trump, but everything that kind of came afterwards. So in this space, what that meant for this space is that all of a sudden, you know, the idea of talking about decarbonization and climate change action and ESG efforts, all of a sudden you had corporates actually not even being allowed to communicate those words. And they had to shift towards, you know, bottom line impact. Um, so there was this kind of this stun and then this pivot, and that takes time. So the pivot meant that a lot of these organizations had to do this reset. They had to decide are they going to keep going like they were? If they weren't, you know, how are they gonna adjust? How are they gonna pivot in terms of being in lined up, you know, with with kind of local politics? And it's not just in the in the US, it's it's globally, right? How do you how do you react to that? Because this is a global market, right? Um, and so the first half of 2025 was all about this reset. Um and I think there was a bit of uh certainly concerns and worries as to what kind of an impact this was going to have, negative impact this was gonna have on the industry. Now, coming out of that storm, what was interesting to see was that this change of era, let's call it, actually didn't have as big an impact as some of us were worried about. And the reason why is because the decarbonization pass, the sustainable aviation fuel pass, all of these paths had already been set in motion. The wheels had been set in motion since years, since years. And the value to business of SAF, you know, buying SAF certificates or buying SAF itself and so on and so on, had already been demonstrated in terms of bottom line impact, value impact, brand impact, all of that had been already demonstrated to show that it was just good business sense, you know, to abate your emissions using SAF. And so when something makes good business impact, good business sense, that's not something that you can you can just decide to stop doing, because you have your shareholders, you have your investors, you have your management team to to answer to. And if that decision making of turning something around, not doing something anymore, you say you're doing it for reasons, you know, based on the current political environment, if that has an impact on your a negative impact on your bottom line, nobody's gonna do it. So what we saw in the second half of 2026 is that, hey, the train's already going, the wheels are in motion, we can't slow it down. Corporates weren't backing down, in fact, they were doubling up in terms of their procurement of SAF. Airlines weren't backing down either. The only thing that we saw change was purely the communication, purely the narratives. So people want to have a narrative that makes sense, that touches people, that touches people locally. And so we started talking about SAF in a much more local way, a much more prosperous way, you know, for the community. And I think, you know, we'll probably get into that. So I'll talk about that a little bit more in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00:So 2025 staffs got a seven out of ten. So but admittedly, the shock of Trump was a was a huge one in January, but there was also other considerable moments of of good news of momentum building across the globe in terms of staff development. Do any sort of things that that happened last year or events or announcements or things like that sort of jump out to you as being of considerable sort of note for being helping sort of accelerate, build the industry, being massive milestones that we that we should actually sort of look at and sort of celebrate as being huge, insignificant.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely, absolutely. And and again, I might sound like a broken record, but again, the fact that book and claim was widely uh adopted, um, I think that's a huge milestone for the industry. Um, you know, and we we played our a huge part in that with our book and claim pilot. Uh so that was definitely, you know, a bright star last year in terms of what happened to accelerate the market. I think a second milestone, you know, kudos to Lansa Jet and the Lansa Jet team. Um, a plan, you know, being an entrepreneur myself, you know, you can have the best plan in the works, but until you've put it into operation, you don't know what your challenges are going to be, your obstacles, the things that you have to adjust. You know, and so they definitely had um, you know, a period that they went through uh where they had to make some adjustments to get that plant up and working. But that was definitely a bright spot uh on the horizon because we cannot continue, you know, to only um have HEFA-based staff. We have to move on to the next generations of staff. So that was a really great proof of concept that's basically going to lead the way for not just themselves and all of their projects that they have lined up, but for others that are that are that are deciding to do that pathway. Um, the other thing that was a bright spot, I think, was feedstock diversification. Um, so you know, I can you know I can see there was one kind of positive thing that came out of kind of the Trump changes, is that he was really adamant about using local feedstocks. Um so while it's painful, I think, for some of those suppliers in the US to no longer have access to international feedstocks, uh I think it's a good thing that they have to kind of turn their eyes internally and look towards their own local feedstocks, um, you know, to basically have this kind of local prosperity. And we've got some great narratives coming out of that as well. When you take a look at things like, you know, technical corn oil, uh, cover crops, you know, tallow, you can start to see this kind of um energy decentralization, moving to, you know, moving away from energy coming from only one or two sources in the world, you know, to really being, you know, local. So I call that energy equity and and local prosperity. And then you can start to see what that means for kind of local farmers and local suppliers of used cooking oil. So I focus there only on the US, but when you when you then take a look at the rest of the world as well, you start to see what they're using, you know, for local feedstocks. Um, you know, so that diverse feedstock diversity was really a bright spot, taking kind of uh something that that felt like it was a headwind, you know, changes to the 45Z, and and then actually realizing there's something coming really good coming out of it. You know, and then I would say the fourth bright spot, and the last one I'll talk about, is the increase in capital flow and the increase in interest from capital providers. So, you know, we've moved away from just you know a small number of capital providers that are specialized in this space and a few institutional investors that want to get into this space, but we haven't grown up to that level to really get a diverse source of capital providers. So now you have kind of patient capital, uh, but you've also got private equity, you've got venture capital coming in, you've got the infrastructure investors starting to come in as well. And one of the really bright spots for me were family offices. You've got really rich family offices coming in, wanting to put their money in somewhere that really has an impact. So the long and short of that, the fact that we've got this diverse now group of investors that are coming into this space. Okay, somebody like me then has a diverse selection of capital providers. What that really means is that there's good returns investment in this industry. There are good returns investment in this industry. And if people are willing to take the time to understand it, they're going to make good investments. So that's definitely the fourth kind of bright stining char of of 2025, I would say.
SPEAKER_00:I love all those, all those bright, bright, bright spots throughout the year. They're excellent. And I think it shows that that to your sort of the first point we were talking about 2025, there was uh an overarching narrative that wasn't potentially overly productive for developing staff. But beneath that, if you sort of look, you can find really good examples of the industry developing, maturing, and building understanding of bringing other people into it, this diversification of capital that's available now to different industry players, I think is an excellent example of how this the industry is maturing. But on the problem, problematic narrative that's potentially being built and driven from the US, do you see that being problematic, a sort of a symptomatic problem that's going to extend into this year that the industry is going to have to continue to fight against? Or do you think it's building up its own sort of head of steam and sort of maturing beyond sort of this narrative that one minute it's terrible and so flippant and changeable?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. I definitely have concerns about 2026. Um, you know, if we if we if we hang on that last point that I made about all these different diverse sources of capital and what their expectations are, at the end of the day, their expectation is to see a market standing on its own two feet. So I always say, you know, the governments don't create the market. What they do is they facilitate them. So the idea of incentives, the idea of mandates, you know, these tools are tools to facilitate a market, to get it off the ground, you know, when things are really, really super expensive, right? But they don't necessarily create the market. It's really for the market to create itself. And that's where, you know, we need to develop this voluntary market. And just by the sheer sense of that word, voluntary, you know, that people will voluntarily buy something because it makes good business sense, that is really where, you know, we have to do a lot of work. And again, I've already I've already touched on this. It comes back down to those corporates coming in and saying, my business prospers because I'm able to transport goods, you know, on aircraft. But those aircraft are, you know, uh do need to be, those emissions do need to be treated. And so I, as a corporate, am willing to contribute to the decarbonization of that sector, meaning that they have to, you know, pony up, they have to pay a little bit of money towards that. Um, the the the headwinds of last year, I'm I'm hoping that they will die down and we'll start to get some tailwinds so that corporates will really step up and understand that you know they're a stakeholder in this industry. Um, and if they don't voluntarily support it and help it and contribute it to it, you know, the governments are going to step in. And then we're in this kind of spiral, which doesn't work for capital providers. They're like, okay, more government now. What we need is is more is a growing voluntary market. So again, you know, future energy global will be razor-sharp focused on developing that market.
SPEAKER_00:I think the the government sort of incentives, you point them out as being tools, and eventually over reliance on that, they become a crutch. And then you don't get the voluntary engagement, you don't get the capital interest because the industry is so reliant on it being governed by government as opposed to independently developing on itself, which I think is exactly where you're coming from with the growth of this voluntary market and building beyond just the requirements for staff uptake as dictated by mandate here in Europe or in the UK, or what's beneficial from a um an incentive-based tax credit in the US. It's it's very much got to develop of it on its own two feet and go beyond that. Otherwise, it just stuck in a in a place where it won't enable it to grow because it would be too reliant on governments to drive the path forward.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, in terms of you'll see uh the two announced the two optics that we have announced are both in the US. And clearly, you know, incentives play a role there in terms of pricing. And that the you know, the biggest conversation that we have with bringing on new suppliers into into our portfolio outside of the US is we don't have those those those um those incentives available to us, so we don't price the same. And what I just respond to them is is that's okay. That's okay because smart corporate buyers, you know, and certainly ones that we educate understand those dynamics. But corporate buyers, you know, if they really want to, if they rather want to be kind of a little bit more sophisticated in their procurement process, they're gonna balance out where their emissions are in the world. And they don't have to get into something that's ultra sophisticated. They just need to maybe potentially split it into three regions or even two regions in the world and say, you know, this region of the world, SAF is more expensive. So my SAF threes, scope threes, they have to cost more. In this region, you know, they're gonna cost less. So let's make sure that the percentages make sense. And let's make sure that you know, this budget we allocate a little bit to everybody so that the the The world of SAF can prosper and not just that region, you know, where there are incentives and and and smart corporates, they understand that.
SPEAKER_00:On the regionality, which region in the world did you find most sort of interesting, dynamic, and had seen the most developments for SAF last year?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's you know that would be like that would be like telling you know your children that you have a favorite out of all of them, like all of the regions, which we're like, everyone's got a favorite, they just don't say it publicly. You never say it. You never say it. So you're not gonna get that out of me either. No, I mean I I find that the world of SaaF fascinating, and you have different dynamics in every region. So, you know, clearly the US has had to pivot. Uh, they've got a price shift now with the 45Z, they've had to do a shift in terms of feed stocks. What that means is that their corporate buyers, you know, that are that are stakeholders in that kind of supply chain with those airlines in there as well, they all have to start to level up in terms of their education as well. So you have this interesting dynamic in the US going on where they now have their own little headwind that they have to deal with. What we saw when I was over at New York Climate Action Week was that they've got the neighbors actually coming in now and saying, hey, you know, if you want to duplicate your plant or if you were planning to do a plant in the US, um, and you now want to do it kind of in one of the neighbors, so the neighbors being Canada and Central and Latin America, they're actually stepping up, you know, with government funding and saying, hey, look, you know, we want you to come and play in our playgrounds. So you've got some interesting developments, kind of to north and south of the US. And then when you go, you know, take a boat to and you go to the other side of the oceans in terms of what's happening over in Asia. Um, no, Asia, there's, I would say Asia, uh Africa, and the Middle East have got some really interesting prototypes that are starting up. There are some plants already, you know, functioning, which is great. Um, but you've got some new little startups that we're working with that again using local feedstocks, they've got their prototype going, you know, they've produced a little bit of SAF. And I think during 2026 you're going to see some off takes from us that are going to be signed with some of those plants. Um, you know, so there's really uh a lot going on in in every region. The one you'll see that I kind of left out was Europe, um, because in Europe the dynamic that we've seen is the mandate came in last year, right? And and how is that going to evolve so that a voluntary market can evolve, you know, in that market? Um, that's a tough one, you know. So they've got this mandate that basically has been put on the fuel suppliers. And and and this is no secret, you can take a look at what the price of SAF was at the end of 2024 and as of January 2025. I mean, you know, it it went up by 50% or even more, right? Um, and there's all kinds of, I think you probably in other podcasts, I'm sure you've you've addressed some of those dynamics that is happening in Europe. What that means though is that the voluntary market, I think, has slowed down in Europe, which is a bit of a pity because I think there's a lot of airlines that would like to purchase SAF voluntarily. Um, they are doing it, some of them, but there's a lot more potential there. But it's kind of the how, you know, are they going to purchase it locally for suppliers that are there that can't change their pricing, or are they going to do it via book and claim? So, you know, one of the one of the interesting things is is that, you know, the governments are coming in, you know, with different kind of with different um studies in terms of whether it makes sense to have book and claim for the mandates. And when that happens, I think you're going to see the market start to accelerate as well. So there's no doubt in my mind, you know, that book and claim even makes sense for the mandates. It's a question of of how quickly that can develop. Um and again, you know, this this burden, I don't want to say burden, this heaviness of of European airlines having to deal with those mandates have have just slowed them down a little bit in the voluntary market. But I I hope that, you know, that that will um that that will kind of get better, I suppose, in in 2026. There's a lot of interesting projects though, certainly in Europe. Um, and certainly with Book and Claim, you know, those European projects also have access to an international market, too.
SPEAKER_00:One region I was extremely disappointed in last year was Antarctica. I didn't see any news coming out of that. I'm expecting big things in 2026 for Antarctica, so um I'm looking forward to seeing that happening. We're big Antarctica fans on this podcast. We've we've got yeah, huge Antarctica fans. We think there's got huge plans potentially for Antarctica. So um watching space for Antarctica 2026. That's all I'm gonna say.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, let you know if you have a study on you know what kind of feed stacks they would use there, just let me know. I'm sure they must have some innovative feedstacks.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. I mean, we've we've said before, I mean, we're workshopping sort of penguin and field blubber. That's sort of that's where we're workshopping at the moment. Um, we see some potential there. But um, yeah, we'll we'll keep everyone up to date on how Antarctica's progressing. Um moving slightly towards 2026. At the end of last year, there was a um IATA released their sort of estimates for production levels for 2026 and it sort of it increased, but not as much as everyone thought it would increase by. I think it went from roughly 1.9 million tons in 2025, and they're estimating 2.4 million tons in 2026. So about half a million tons increased. Do you sort of agree with that? Think that's sort of the direction we're going? Sort of some sluggish growth, but a little bit more, but not loads, or do you are you slightly more optimistic than that?
SPEAKER_02:No, I I think that you have to be um you have to be reasonable in this market. Uh and I actually, you know, it might not be the answer that you want to hear, but I actually I actually do agree with it. Okay. So creating a market, this is natural in terms of when you're creating a market. You know, you've got these periods of high acceleration, and then all of a sudden it slows down a little bit as it resets. You know, maybe some government policies change. Uh uh, you've got some new players that come into the market, like ourselves, right? And so then things start to things start to to reset and then accelerates again. I think in in 2026, we're still gonna have, you know, some of the some of the the kind of Trump era um, I would, I don't want to say headwinds, I would say just this Trump-era fuzziness for some of these uh corporates and and capital providers to kind of work through takes a long time. And so we have to give them that time to kind of work through, um uh work through all that and try and figure out you know where they're gonna be. So what that means is it has a slight impact on capital. You know, capital providers like to see steady growth, they don't like to see blips, um, and again, they want to see a market that stands on its own two feet. So, yeah, I think you know there'll just be a little bit of, I wouldn't say cold feet, maybe just a little more kind of lukewarm, tepid feet from some of the capital providers, but there'll be new ones coming in, as I said uh previously, to kind of temper that. Um, and now 2026 is I think there's gonna be a big focus on the bankability of the off-takes. So one of the reasons why we've seen so much acceleration and so much growth and double-digit growth over the last few years, is because the pioneers in the industry, you know, I'll just name one, like IAG. Now, IAG, oh well I'll name two, IAG, and you've got Air France KLM. There's lots of them.
SPEAKER_00:They basically have you on the dangerous float, naming one, you've got to name two, and then three. That's a slippery road to go down.
SPEAKER_02:It is, it is, isn't it? These these airlines and airline groups have really been pioneers in this space uh and have signed up for massive, uh, a massive volume of off takes. Um, and kudos to them. You know, they're really leading the way for everybody else. But that type of approach, you know, it may not be sustainable for all airlines and even perhaps themselves. So you have to have somebody else coming in again, like Future Energy Global, being able to offer bankable off takes, which means that you need balance sheet. You need somebody to step up, you need somebody to say, okay, well, I'll be your external capital provider, right? And this is what we're in discussions with all the time, right? I'll be your external capital provider because I believe in what you've done. I can see the proof is in the pudding, I can see the returns are great, you know. So I will step up with my balance sheet, you know, to to to bank those off takes because I can see the potential in terms of those multi-year returns and so on and so on. That's not there yet. So uh those discussions are going to keep going. And I think there's gonna be this turning point that when you see that happen, and again, you know, we're planning on being that that that bankable offtake provider, um, when you see that happening and you see that money being put up against off-takes for an aggregation model like us, it's almost like the the aircraft leasing space. Again, I come from the aircraft leasing space, was there for 15 years. Once it works for one capital provider, oh boy, then you're gonna see all the capital providers you know coming in and stepping in, right? Um, and that's when you're gonna see real growth in the industry. Um, because what's happening right now is that it's not there yet. Because it's not here yet, you know, there's lots of capital providers that want to put money into the infrastructure, the projects that's backed by the actual infrastructure itself, but where they get cold feet is well, who's your who's your off taker, right? So what's happening it still to this day is that projects are still waiting too long for that capital to come in. Um, and then on the flip side, you know, I think again, I had a saying that it's going to be a little bit sluggish. It makes sense because on the flip side, those airlines that would provide those off takes, I think they've they've reached, most of them have reached their their limit in terms of their corporate programs. So, you know, buying the scope ones and the scope threes, and then selling the scope threes to corporate programs, there's kind of only so much that they can do without actually growing that business within a business because that's what it is. It's business within a business. I think I heard you know, Air France has got over 400 corporate partners. That is a lot of relationship management, right? So again, you have to have somebody like ourselves to come in to sort of say, okay, we'll pick, we'll take it from here, we'll pick it up from here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But we need to be able to grow and we need to be able to be able to have the right partners in place, which again we're working on to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_00:I was going to ask you a question about handbrakes that need to be released to build acceleration in the industry and what else you want to see happen, accelerate the industry. But I reckon, judging by the way this conversation's gone, your answer will probably be about book and claim and voluntary demand. So I don't need to ask those anymore. So that's great. So we can move on.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think there's one minor one. I think you're right. There's one, there's the that's the major one that has to happen. And then there's this, there's a mechanics one, which is registry interoperability. That's just a big question. We should have another, you know, totally another, you know, because because the integrity of our business is all about the traceability of those attributes. And we put them on registries, but right now the registries they don't talk to each other, and so you can't shift um a scope three or scope one from one registry to the next. And so you have to have all the scale the the stakeholders lined up, you know, the supplier and the buyer, and so on and so on, you know, on the same registry before you do a deal. Um, and that is also kind of a handbrake as well. But yes, the major the major handbreak is definitely development of the voluntary market book and claim scope three.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. So registry interoperability and book and claim, voluntary demand. So who are your ones to watch for 2026, apart from Future Energy Global? I can say future energy global are ones to watch this year. I'll say that. You've got to pick some other people. Who are you excited about for next year?
SPEAKER_02:Who am I excited about for the next year? I actually um I don't have a who. Oh yeah, I don't have a who for that in terms of an answer for that question. I think who are the ones to watch? Yeah, it's more so the regions. I think there's some really exciting stuff actually happening in in India, in all parts of Asia, and in Africa and in Latin America, um, which you know, most of the world. Um, you know, maybe check in with me maybe in six months, once we've done maybe a couple of optics, six to twelve months, and I can tell you those are the ones I was thinking about. Um, but yeah, there's definitely some interesting stuff happening, I would say, outside of the US, where we already have a couple of optical.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. And what does a successful 2026 look like? Maybe sort of briefly for for you and also for for the industry and for the world.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so for for really this market to grow, we need people to step up, but new people to step up. Okay. Um there's a a lot of untapped potential with airlines, you know. So I would encourage any airline, like I say, we can do deals as small as 10 tons, right? Uh, even smaller if you if you really really ask us. How far are we talking? One ton? Yeah, why not? Why not? I think we could do that. Um and and so I think new new airlines who kind of were were on the fence in terms of whether they wanted to buy a book and claims certificate, scope ones and scope three, so I would say come and talk to us. And and if you don't have corporate buyers, we do. Okay. Um, so 2026 has to be all about new airline entrance into this space. That the there's no longer the excuse of, well, I don't have it available in my backyard, right? You do have it available to you because you have it available through Book and Claim. It also has to be the corporates. So we need to have, you know, all those corporates that are buying carbon credits, you know, a few percent of those that abatement has to become SAF certificates. And all those corporates that neither buy carbon credits nor SAF insets, you know, they need to step up and start purchasing, um, start, start purchasing um SAF certificates. Um, and I think if that happens, you know, then what we'll start to see as well is we'll start to see new projects coming online. All those capital investors, they will start to get comfortable with gross in the market because then we're not just talking about a large volume from a few buyers, we're talking about a large volume from a lot of buyers. And this contributes to this idea of the portfolio concept, portfolio of buyers and a portfolio of staff suppliers. So once you've got that portfolio of buyers that is growing, even if they're buying in small, small um um amounts, then you're gonna start to see the capital providers start to get more comfortable, start to get reassured, and the money's gonna then start to flow into the projects. So I'm hoping that we end 2026 with a lot more projects that have been financed and that have come online in all regions of the world.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. We are recording this a couple weeks into January, so it's about the time of year where everyone starts breaking their New Year's resolutions. So what we're gonna do, what I'm gonna ask you to do now is maybe give us one New Year's resolution for future energy global the year ahead. Maybe something that you sort of learned or picked up from last year, and then maybe a wider stuff industry-wide revolution resolution that you think everyone could could live by and that would help build out this industry further over the year.
SPEAKER_01:Step up. Step up, stop talking about it. Stop talking about it.
SPEAKER_00:Is this your one for future energy global, or is this your one for the industry? You telling all your colleagues of future energy global they need to work for.
SPEAKER_02:No, you're right. You you've caught me off guard here. That was a question that yeah, I wasn't thinking about what are the what are the new year's resolutions, right? Um, that was more for the industry, uh, and particularly for the buyers. If you've been on the fence, you know, for the last one month, twelve months, twenty-four months as to whether you know you should be buying SAF certificates or SAF in any form, whether it's airlines or corporate buyers, step up, try it, you know, figure out how to do it. Talk to us. Uh, if you're an airline, you don't have those corporate scope three buyers, you know, we can just do a scope one deal. Um if you're corporate and you've only got a small, small budget, well, well, if you know, put it into these insets, these in-sector solutions. Uh, so that's more for the industry. Um then for future energy global, what what would what what's my resolution for in in future energy global? You know, go bigger, go faster. Uh we figured it out. Uh you can see there's there's governments who are sitting there trying to figure out, you know, kind of these mechanisms. Uh, you know, market, they call them market-enabling mechanisms, uh, which is basically what we're doing, you know, kind of an aggregation scheme. Um, so we don't need to figure it out. We've done it, we've proven it. Um we've got those great blue chip customers on all sides, so suppliers and buyers. Uh, and so it's just go bigger, go faster, uh, and let's accelerate this market. That's what I would say to my team.
SPEAKER_00:Natasha, that's awesome. Thanks so much for for your time and for um discussing so much in so much detail. It was great to have you back. And we'll um we'll see you again in um in London, for Staffenberg London, I hope. Um in a few weeks. So um, yeah, if anyone wants to grab Natasha as she comes off stage in London, um, I'm sure she'll welcome doing that you doing that to her again.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Thanks very much. It's been a pleasure as always, and looking forward to seeing you in London in a couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks, Natasha.