Can SAF certificates (book and claim) reduce my Scope 3 business travel or air freight emissions?

Not inside your GHG Protocol inventory today. The Scope 3 Standard has no market-based method, so Category 6 travel and Category 4 or 9 air freight stay at their activity-based figure. You can report SAF certificate claims separately, next to the inventory, with full certificate details. Rules are under revision.

What a book and claim certificate is

Sustainable aviation fuel is blended into the fuel supply at some airport, usually not on your flight. The supplier issues a certificate for the lifecycle emission reduction of that fuel, and you buy the claim. A registry tracks the certificate so the same reduction is claimed once. The Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials Book and Claim Manual sets out one such system.

How to report it now

1. Report Category 6 business travel and Category 4 or 9 air freight in full, from distance or spend as usual.
2. Show the SAF claim on a separate line outside the Scope 3 total, labelled as a certificate-based claim.
3. State the fuel volume, feedstock, lifecycle reduction per tonne, the registry, the certificate IDs and the retirement date.
4. Say whether the airline or forwarder also counts the same SAF, for example under an aviation scheme, so a reader can see any overlap.

Decision rule

• If you need a number to fit an SBTi or buyer target: do not subtract it yet; check the target-setter's current rules first.
• If you want to show action to customers: buy certificates from a tracked registry, retire them in your name, and disclose separately.
• If the forwarder offers a lower emission figure on the invoice because of SAF: ask for the certificate behind it before using it.

Where the rules are heading

The GHG Protocol is reviewing market instruments in Scope 3, and the SBTi draft Corporate Net-Zero Standard version 2 discusses limited use of environmental attribute certificates. For freight, the Smart Freight Centre's market-based accounting guidance for logistics already describes how such claims can be reported beside the inventory. None of these yet changes the Scope 3 Standard.

Example: how the report looks

• Category 6 business travel, distance-based: 200 t CO2e
• SAF certificates bought and retired: stated lifecycle reduction 15 t CO2e
• Scope 3 Category 6 reported: 200 t CO2e (unchanged)
• Separate disclosure: SAF certificate claim of 15 t CO2e, with registry and certificate IDs

Figures are illustrative. If a future method allows the deduction, the same records would support 200 minus 15 = 185 t CO2e.

What Senseible does here

Senseible keeps your travel and freight invoices together with the SAF certificate and retirement documents, so the activity-based Scope 3 lines and the separate certificate claim rest on one evidence file.

• Flight emissions for business travel
• Is freight Category 4 or 9?
• GLEC Framework explained

Sources: GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard, SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard version 2 (draft), Smart Freight Centre, market-based accounting and reporting guidance for logistics

Last reviewed 2026-10-17. GHG Protocol and SBTi positions on certificates in Scope 3 are under revision; recheck before each reporting cycle.