IAG has announced a new strategic investment in Wastefront, where used tyres are repurposed into aviation fuel.
IAG, the International Airlines Group, has invested in Wastefront, a leading tyre-to-fuel company, who plan to turn used tyres into Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). The SAF will be made by converting waste tyres into tyre derived oil, which is then refined into road fuels and SAF. The SAF produced is expected to give life cycle carbon emission savings of over 80 percent versus fossil fuels.
This deal is another step forward for IAG in its commitment to SAF and enables Wastefront to begin construction on its fully circular tyre-to-fuel facility in the Port of Sunderland.
The plant will begin operations in 2026 and once fully operational the following year, will process up to 10 million waste tyres annually. The UK currently generates around 50 million end-of-life tyres each year, with most of them currently exported to countries such as India where they are incinerated in cement plants or disposed of in landfills.
Facilities like Wastefront’s planned Sunderland plant are critical to meeting the UK’s SAF mandate, which came into effect on 1 January 2025, requiring at least 10 percent of all jet fuel used in flights departing the UK to come from sustainable feedstocks by 2030, rising to 22 percent by 2040.
Achieving the UK’s 2030 SAF target will require producing 1.2 million tonnes of SAF annually for the aviation industry - almost 20 times the UK’s estimated production of 64,000 tonnes in 2023, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
“We’re proud to support innovators like Wastefront, who are finding new forms of feedstocks to produce advanced fuels. However, as global demand for Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) grows, it’s crucial to expand production in the UK,” said Jonathon Counsell, IAG Group Sustainability Officer.
“The recent Government mandate will help reduce aviation’s overall carbon impact, but airlines need confidence that the planned revenue certainty mechanism will support UK businesses in developing SAF technology without further increasing the cost base for UK airlines.”
IAG’s investment is part of its broader strategy to reduce carbon emissions in its operations, across its airlines Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia, Vueling and LEVEL. The Group has already secured more than a third of its 2030 SAF target and was the first European airline group to pledge 10 percent SAF usage by 2030.
"At Wastefront, our mission is to turn a problematic waste stream into a highly valuable resource. We can create SAF at an extremely competitive cost with a very low environmental footprint - capable of reducing carbon emissions in the production process by up to 80 percent compared to traditional jet fuels. This investment is a testament to the potential of Wastefront’s technology in tackling waste and air pollution,” said Vianney Valès, CEO of Wastefront.
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