EVA Air and Microsoft Partner to Reduce Air Freight Emissions

EVA Air has signed a two-year agreement with AIT Worldwide Logistics and Microsoft to supply 15,000 metric tons of CO₂e in Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) environmental attributes, aiming to lower the carbon footprint of Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure air shipments [3]. The collaboration creates an integrated supply chain involving fuel producer Formosa Petrochemical Corporation (FPCC) to address Scope 3 emissions, which are indirect emissions occurring in a company's value chain [3].

Scaling the SAF supply chain

The SAF utilized in this program is derived from used cooking oil and certified under the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) system [3]. Compared to traditional jet fuel, this alternative produces approximately 80% lower lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions [3]. The environmental attributes associated with the fuel are tracked and retired through the ISCC Credit Transfer System, providing a verifiable mechanism for Microsoft to account for its Scope 3 reductions [3].

This initiative aligns with Microsoft’s 2020 commitment to become carbon negative by 2030 [3]. For EVA Air, the move represents an expansion of a broader SAF strategy that has been in place since 2025, during which the airline began incorporating SAF into flights departing from North America, Europe, and Asia [3]. The airline has also secured a five-year procurement agreement with FPCC to ensure a consistent supply of the fuel for its Green Transportation Program [3].

Market and industry implications

The collaboration serves as a model for how corporate demand can influence the aviation fuel market. By aligning logistics providers like AIT Worldwide Logistics with fuel producers and airlines, the partners aim to create a repeatable framework for decarbonizing high-value air cargo [3]. While EVA Air has been active in sustainability benchmarks—recently becoming the only Taiwanese airline selected as a constituent of the Dow Jones Best-in-Class Emerging Markets Index—this specific partnership focuses on the practical application of SAF at scale [3].

What to watch

• Expansion of participants: Whether EVA Air successfully recruits additional corporate customers to its Green Transportation Program to increase the volume of SAF environmental attributes traded [3].
• FPCC production capacity: Monitoring the output of FPCC’s SAF production as the company balances its broader petrochemical operations with its five-year supply commitment to EVA Air [3].
• Standardization: The potential adoption of the ISCC Credit Transfer System by other carriers in the Asia-Pacific region as a standard for reporting Scope 3 air freight emissions [3].

The success of this collaboration hinges on whether the participating companies can prove that such integrated value chains are scalable beyond a single pilot program. The open question remains whether the current premium for SAF will decrease enough to allow these sustainability attributes to become a standard feature of global logistics rather than a specialized corporate initiative.