ONE YEAR OF THE CADO SAF REGISTRY.

Civil Aviation Decarbonization Organization (CADO) | April 2026

 

IATA launched the Civil Aviation Decarbonization Organization (CADO) and its SAF Registry to provide the aviation sector with a scalable, purpose built system for tracking SAF across the full value chain. As SAF adoption accelerated through regulation, airline commitments, and increased production, a consistent and aviation specific platform was needed to support transparent and agnostic accounting. The Registry was developed to meet that need. This first year marks the initial implementation of the system and its role in supporting the sector’s transition.

THE CHALLENGE: A MARKET IN MOTION, WITHOUT A MAP

SAF is the most consequential near-term mechanism available to decarbonize aviation and is expected to account for about 65% of emissions abatement. As momentum built, a foundational question remained unanswered: how do you track and account for SAF in an agnostic and flexible way that every stakeholder in the value chain can trust?

We saw that a credible answer required more than a tracking system. It required a platform grounded in the GHG Protocol's established accounting principles, designed with an aviation perspective, and governed with independence. That philosophy shaped everything we built afterwards.

LAYING THE GROUNDWORK

A registry is only as credible as the body that governs it. CADO was established by IATA precisely to provide assurance as an independent, impartial steward free from any commercial interests.

 

 

The Registry went live one year ago, following an extended development phase. Before development began, extensive stakeholder engagement was undertaken to inform the system’s design. Airlines, producers, suppliers, freight forwarders, intermediaries, regulators, and auditors were consulted through structured processes to test assumptions and refine requirements. As a result, the Registry was developed collaboratively, reflecting industry input rather than a standalone or isolated approach.

BUILDING THE PLATFORM: THREE RELEASES, THREE EVOLUTIONS

Release 1: The Foundation Goes Live, April 2025

The first release brought the core SAF value chain onto a single platform. SAF producers, suppliers, and airlines could onboard to register SAF and begin transacting and tracking environmental attributes downstream to freight forwarders and end customers. It was a start, and it was designed to grow.

Release 2: Reflecting Market Reality, September 2025

The SAF value chain is more complex than a simple producer-to-supplier-to-airline model, and Release 2 was designed to reflect that. We introduced the intermediary account type, giving intermediaries a formal presence in the Registry to transact between suppliers/airlines and end customers in whatever combination the market required.

We also expanded the number of transactions the Registry facilitates. Previously, freight forwarders and end customers occupied equivalent positions as co-beneficiaries of Scope 3 emissions reductions. After the enhancement, freight forwarders gained additional capability: they can reserve SAF from an upstream stakeholder, match it to an end customer (the shipper), and appear as a named co-beneficiary on the resulting emissions statement.

Recognizing that a single organization can wear more than one hat, we also introduced secondary roles, allowing an organization to hold multiple roles within a single account. We also published the Public Redemption Table, making all redeemed SAF transactions visible to the public, a deliberate step to cater to transparency and end customers’ preferences.

Release 3: Regulation at Core, December 2025 - January 2026

Release 3 addressed two distinct needs: the operational demands of large organizations, and the Registry's deepening role in enabling regulatory claims. We introduced group-level user management, allowing corporate groups to manage the SAF inventories of multiple entities through a single account. We launched state accounts, enabling pertinent national authorities to monitor SAF uptake and cross-check compliance with frameworks including CORSIA and ETS. Carbon auditors can now also be invited into the system to conduct audits from within the Registry itself.

We also introduced the claiming module, allowing SAF redeemed in one year to be claimed against regulatory or voluntary commitments in a different year, independently by each beneficiary of the SAF environmental benefits. Building on this, airlines can now auto-populate the CORSIA Eligible Fuel (CEF) template with a single click, based on their claimed redemptions for a given year. What was once a manual process has become a seamless output of the Registry, making it a genuine enabler of regulatory compliance.

ONE YEAR IN NUMBERS

We have gone far in one year:

130+   organizations onboarded across the SAF value chain

≈ 100K t   of emissions reductions tracked on the platform[1]

9   distinct account types (producers, suppliers, airlines, intermediaries, freight forwarders, end customers, carbon auditors, states, and validators)

Every kilogram of SAF registered represents environmental attributes that can be tracked, verified, and reported with confidence.

LOOKING AHEAD

The CADO SAF Registry is one part of the plan that turns the ambitious aviation’s net-zero goal into action, and as we enter our second year, our priorities are clear.

§ State Pilot Projects: Work with pertinent national authorities is ongoing to deploy the Registry as the backbone of their SAF compliance programs. Exciting announcements are expected soon.

§ Interoperability: Double counting is one of the most significant risks facing the SAF market today, and we have moved to address it proactively. Together with our partner registries, 123Carbon and 4Air, we have developed a cross-registry validation framework to verify that a SAF batch has not been registered elsewhere before it enters any registry in the framework. Automated checks are going live later in the year following a pilot exercise, and we welcome other registries to join once that exercise is completed.

§ Collaboration with ICAO and Member States: We are actively engaging with ICAO and Member States through its working groups as a trusted registry for facilitating the goals of CAAF/3 and the Long-term aspirational goal (LTAG), alongside showcasing how CORSIA CEF claims can be populated from the Registry.

§ Enhanced User Experience: Future releases will include bulk SAF registration, user dashboards, and integration with other technology providers, continuing to reduce friction for every participant in the value chain.

§ Standardization: We are working with CADO’s founder organization (IATA) to support IATA’s initiative in standardizing the Proof of Sustainability and Proof of Compliance templates, creating a shared language across the ecosystem that ensures necessary data points are captured for all stakeholders in one document.

The work is ongoing, with more developments expected in the coming months.

A REGISTRY PURPOSE-BUILT FOR THE INDUSTRY

One year ago, the requirements for an aviation‑specific SAF registry were defined and development began. The objective was to deliver a system that could support trust, adapt to evolving regulatory frameworks, and provide value across the SAF value chain.

One year on, more than 130 organizations are participating and three major system releases have been delivered. The Registry is operational and continues to evolve based on user needs and regulatory developments. With a clear roadmap in place, the focus now is on scaling adoption, expanding functionality, and ensuring the Registry remains fit for purpose over the long term.