Brazil’s largest energy giant tests Cardano to fix carbon double-counting

Petrobras, the state-backed Brazilian energy titan, is currently experimenting with the Cardano blockchain to monitor sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) benefits and stop double-counting.

On Sept. 30, the Cardano Foundation announced that an ongoing research and development partnership has successfully produced applications for sustainable aviation fuel as well as Diesel R, which is Petrobras’ brand of renewable fuel.

The SAF initiative tackles a common complication that occurs when the purchaser of an environmental attribute differs from the actual consumer or buyer of the fuel. Utilizing a Book-and-Claim approach, this system enables airlines, corporations, or individual passengers to claim environmental benefits even if the SAF itself is manufactured or consumed in a completely different location.

Collaborating with Ledger Labs at PUC-Rio University and the Cardano Foundation, Petrobras built the SAF platform. As detailed in the Foundation’s case study, the platform translates SAF environmental attributes into standardized CS-SAF tokens hosted on the Cardano network.

These tokens support creation, transfer, verification, and retirement functions. The retirement process ensures that a single attribute cannot be claimed more than once, whereas the digital ledger ties every allocation directly back to its source fuel certificate.

In cryptocurrency terms, this mirrors double-spending prevention—stopping the reuse of a digital asset—applied here specifically to environmental claims.

According to the Foundation, travelers can input their origin and destination airports to compute a CS-SAF allocation, ultimately earning a certificate that outlines their specific route, distance traveled, and assigned allocation. This claim stays permanently tethered to the original SAF certificate.

Furthermore, the tokens feature metadata that complies with CORSIA, the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation.

According to guidelines released on June 16 by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials, the Book-and-Claim framework does not alter the physical fuel consumed by a buyer nor its linked emissions. The guidance dictates that airlines ought to report supported reductions separately from their operational emissions.

Various participants across the value chain are permitted to make distinct claims, provided their reporting does not distort the true overall reduction.

Cardano usage beyond aviation

Created alongside PUC-Rio, the Diesel R initiative outlines various checkpoints spanning production, transit, and final utilization. The primary objective is to maintain an unbroken fuel-lifecycle log capable of aiding Scope 3 reporting, which accounts for indirect emissions generated across a corporation’s broader value network.

Such a system would link data shared among suppliers and logistics coordinators, offering a more transparent supply-chain history for emissions accounting. The Foundation notes that this structural design serves as a conceptual model within the broader R&D efforts.

While the SAF platform demonstrates Cardano’s capacity to log the assignment and retirement of environmental perks, its commercial scale is yet to be determined, as the Foundation’s reports do not disclose specific revenue metrics or transaction volumes.

?Frequently Asked Questions

01What is the main goal of Petrobras using Cardano?

Petrobras is testing Cardano to track sustainable aviation fuel benefits and eliminate the risk of carbon double-counting.

02How does the Book-and-Claim model work for SAF?

It allows airlines, companies, or passengers to claim the environmental benefits of sustainable aviation fuel even if the physical fuel is produced or used elsewhere, utilizing standardized CS-SAF tokens on Cardano to prevent double-spending or duplicate claims.

03What is Diesel R?

Diesel R is Petrobras’ renewable fuel brand. The R&D project associated with it aims to establish a continuous fuel-lifecycle record to assist with Scope 3 indirect emissions reporting.