On 1 October, Topsoe and Moeve co-hosted the event Sustainable Aviation for a Safer Europe, which explored the challenges and opportunities faced by the energy market, such as: feedstock availability, policy uncertainty, offtake, and project risk.
Participants, spanning the energy and defence industry, discussed Europe’s Sustainable Aviation Fuel ambition, which increasingly intersects with both industrial competitiveness and defence readiness. Europe has significant potential to develop a homegrown SAF industry, supported by an existing value chain, European technologies, and continued innovation, but companies still face major obstacles to scaling production. These include competitive pressures on EU airlines, the high-risk investments required for new production capacity, limited feedstock availability, and growing competition from lower-cost suppliers outside Europe.
The discussion then examined the challenges facing different parts of the SAF value chain, the potential for greater military use, and what is needed to ensure Europe can scale production. NATO is expanding its pipeline system and will be connecting military facilities across Europe, including in eastern and south-eastern Europe, as fuel production could be a strong candidate for the 1.5% dual-use spending
During the panel discussion, Shradha Bhatnagar (Honeywell) argued that Europe should reconsider assessing SAF primarily through the levelised cost of production, since European production costs are likely to remain structurally higher. She stressed that such comparisons do not adequately account for the value of resilience and security of supply.
From the industry, Rik Sneep (Moeve) identified feedstock availability and traceability as a key bottleneck for SAF production. He pointed to used cooking oil collected in relatively small quantities in China and subsequently aggregated through long supply chains before certification, arguing that establishing certifiable and reliable value chains remains a major challenge.
Julien Manhes (Airbus) highlighted the difficulty of securing long-term SAF offtake agreements. Unlike many other assets, fuel has no residual value, while relatively few airlines have balance sheets strong enough to support commitments extending for around 10 years. He, therefore, pointed to mechanisms such as double-sided auctions and contracts as ways of bridging the financing gap until SAF projects can attract sufficient private investment on their own.
Elena Scaltritti (Topsoe), on her concluding remarks, focused on the strategic competition around SAF, noting that China is rapidly expanding production both to strengthen its own energy security and to capture a share of the emerging market. She distinguished between bio-SAF, where Europe remains highly dependent on imported feedstocks, and e-SAF, where Europe has domestic renewable-energy resources, technological capabilities, and an existing industrial base. Whether Europe chooses to develop that e-SAF capacity at scale is ultimately a strategic industrial and energy-security decision.
Finally, panellists broadly agreed that it will take more than technology alone; it will require collaboration across the entire value chain to lower risk and move projects to final investment decisions. Developing domestic production of sustainable aviation fuel could turn into a strategic priority to meet both civilian and military demands.
Find out more
DeHavilland is always monitoring developments around EU policy and events. If you would like to start receiving these updates, start your trial today.
