The "book-and-claim" system allows airlines to offset emissions by purchasing credits originating from the use of SAF by other carriers, and is seen as a way to help them reduce their carbon footprints while SAF is not yet widely available.
The aviation industry has the goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and although SAF is expected to account for 64% of these efforts, it currently makes up only 0.2% of global jet fuel use.
Gol and Vibra's deal resulted from a pilot project to analyze how "book-and-claim" would work in Brazil, where carriers are still not required to use SAF or reduce emissions - something expected to happen only from 2027 onwards.
The transaction was a small one in which Vibra supplied traditional jet fuel to Gol, whose emissions of 180 metric tons of CO2 were then offset by the use of 50 tons of used cooking oil-based SAF provided by SkyNRG to the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.
The aircraft supplied with that SAF did not make use of the originating carbon credits, which were in turn sold to Gol.
"The idea was to understand how the whole process works," Gol's Operations Control Center director Eduardo Calderon said, noting that the equivalent of emissions from 10 flights between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo were offset.
Aviation, a carbon-intensive industry, accounts for around 2.5% of global carbon emissions.
Critics of carbon offset markets, including Greenpeace, say they allow emitters to continue to release greenhouse gases.
Calderon said the firms would now present the results to authorities so they could discuss ways to eventually implement a "more solid book-and-claim project" in Brazil.
"Right now, we do not plan on doing it again in the near future," Calderon said. But "undoubtedly," he added, the method will be important for carriers to offset emissions when they are required to.
