Electric Book & Claim (EBC) applies the same core accounting principle used in SAF Book & Claim, but it is designed for electric aircraft flight activity rather than liquid fuel uplift. It exists because electric aviation, like any shared infrastructure system, cannot always perfectly match physical delivery and claims on a one-to-one basis across different locations, operators, and charging arrangements.
In practical terms, EBC allows an operator or organisation to claim verified emissions reductions linked to electric flight operations, even when the physical charging infrastructure is shared, distributed, or not dedicated exclusively to a single customer. The outcome is a transparent, auditable certificate that can be issued, transferred, and retired so that the benefit is claimed by one party only.
With SAF Book & Claim, sustainable aviation fuel is produced and delivered to one location, but it may be unavailable for uplift to an aircraft in another. The emissions benefit is therefore separated from the physical fuel and sold independently to an aircraft operator through a certificate. That payment is intended to support further production and availability of SAF. Ultimately, what is being purchased is the CO2 reduction, not the physical molecule of fuel.
Electric Book & Claim works in a similar way, but for electric aviation:
There is no requirement for the energy to be physically delivered to the claiming organisation, just as SAF does not need to be physically uplifted by the aircraft operator making the claim. In both cases, Book & Claim exists because supply chains and operations are real, but physical attribution is not always neatly alignable in real time.
Electric Book & Claim separates physical delivery (where charging happens) from claim ownership (who gets to report the verified avoided emissions) using a certificate that can be retired once.
Why retirement matters: retirement is the mechanism that prevents the same avoided tonne being sold or claimed twice.
Why this matters
Energy and fuel systems are shared infrastructure. Operators and customers want to fund decarbonisation and make credible claims, but physical delivery and accounting claims cannot always be matched perfectly, especially when operations span many sites. Without Book & Claim, organisations are often forced into either no claim at all or claims based on broad averages that can be difficult to defend under audit.
Book & Claim solves this by:
Electric Book & Claim is a concept developed by Aerovolt. The key differences from SAF Book & Claim come down to what is measured, how easily it can be verified, and how consistently it can be applied across regions. SAF Book & Claim is anchored to fuel production, blending limits, logistics, and physical availability. Electric Book & Claim is anchored to logged electric aircraft operations and measured energy use.
Because electric aircraft operations can be recorded with high resolution (flight logs, telemetry, charger data, and measured kWh), the certificate lifecycle can be designed to be very clear for auditors: what happened, when it happened, which aircraft did it, how much energy was used, and how the baseline emissions comparison was calculated.
Electric aircraft focus
CO2 certificates apply specifically to electric flight operations. This creates a direct pathway for organisations to reduce emissions from flight activity that would otherwise be performed using piston or turbine aircraft, particularly in training, short-range utility missions, and emerging regional operations.
Simplified, more consistent pricing
SAF pricing can vary widely due to multiple producers, feedstocks, blending limits, logistics, and policy incentives. Electric Book & Claim can be structured with a more consistent pricing model, allowing customers to forecast cost per tonne of CO2 avoided with fewer variables.
More direct measurement and reconciliation
Electric aviation accounting can lean on direct operational evidence: aircraft logs, charger logs, and measured kWh. SAF claims often involve additional reconciliation across custody transfer, blending, delivery, and physical availability, which adds complexity.
Corporate greenhouse-gas accounting is commonly organised using the GHG Protocol into “scopes”. Scopes do not describe different molecules of CO2. They describe different accounting boundaries for responsibility and reporting.
Scope 1 are emissions from sources a company owns or controls. These are “at-the-stack / at-the-tailpipe” emissions (plus other direct releases).
Scope 3 are emissions that happen in a company’s value chain (upstream and downstream), but from sources the company does not directly own or control.
The same physical tonne can be:
This is usually not “double counting” in the sense of fraud. It is double reporting by design, to make emissions visible across the whole economy.
Takeaway: Scopes describe who reports emissions and where they sit in a value chain—not who can claim the same reduction benefit multiple times.
The confusion comes from mixing two different worlds:
The same physical emission can appear in multiple inventories because each organisation is responsible for a different piece of the value chain.
Double claiming is when two different parties both claim the same specific reduction as progress toward their targets.
Practical translation: You can have multiple organisations see the same emissions in their inventories, but you should not have multiple organisations sell or claim the same verified reduction toward targets.
SAF Book & Claim is a market mechanism that lets a buyer pay for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) even if the buyer’s flights do not physically consume that SAF. Instead, the buyer receives a certificate representing a quantified lifecycle emissions reduction.
A SAF certificate usually represents lifecycle CO2e reduction relative to fossil jet fuel, often expressed as a percent reduction for a specific SAF pathway.
If governance is weak, multiple parties may try to claim the same lifecycle reduction:
If policy mandates require airlines to blend SAF anyway, the certificate purchase may be financing something that would have occurred regardless, weakening the “this purchase caused the reduction” story.
A buyer might be headquartered in one place while SAF is used somewhere else. The climate benefit is global, but stakeholders sometimes interpret this mismatch as lower credibility unless transparently explained.
Electric Book & Claim is an “insetting-style” mechanism that allows buyers to fund verified electric flight activity (or other electrified aviation operations) and receive certificates representing avoided emissions versus a fossil baseline.
With SAF, the aircraft still combusts fuel; the claim is about lifecycle reduction compared to fossil fuel. With electric aviation, operational combustion emissions can be near-zero; remaining emissions depend primarily on electricity emissions (and lifecycle manufacturing factors if included).
If you pick an unusually high-emitting baseline aircraft, you overstate avoided emissions. A robust standard must define conservative baselines.
“Renewable electricity” claims should require evidence (e.g., Guarantees of Origin / RECs) and ideally define whether time/location matching is required.
If electric flights create brand-new flight activity rather than replacing fossil flights, avoided emissions can be overstated.
SAF Book & Claim is widely seen as a practical way to accelerate sustainable aviation fuel adoption, but it is also subject to scrutiny. Questions typically centre on how emissions reductions are attributed, how claims are communicated, and whether the mechanism delivers real-world climate benefits at scale.
These concerns do not necessarily invalidate Book & Claim, but they highlight the importance of clear rules, transparent accounting, and careful claim language.
Common areas of concern include:
Well-designed Book & Claim systems address these concerns by:
To compare like-for-like, it helps to convert each option into a cost per metric tonne of CO2 avoided. Below is a worked example for neat SAF using an assumed lifecycle reduction, followed by the Electric Book & Claim price.
SAF costs are highly sensitive to supply availability, policy incentives, blending constraints, and the reference price of fossil Jet A. For that reason, the SAF calculation below is best treated as an example using the inputs shown, not a universal global price.
Fossil CO2 per litre:
0.8 kg fuel × 3.16 kg CO2/kg = 2.528 kg CO2 per litre (rounded to 2.53)
CO2 avoided at 70% reduction:
2.53 × 0.70 = 1.771 kg CO2 avoided per litre (rounded to 1.77)
Incremental cost:
$5.15 − $0.84 = $4.31 per litre
Convert avoided CO2 per litre to tonnes:
1.77 kg = 0.00177 tonnes
Cost per tonne avoided:
$4.31 ÷ 0.00177 ≈ $2,435 per tonne CO2
Approximate cost to save 1 tonne of CO2 using SAF (with the inputs above): ~$2,400 per tonne CO2
This difference matters because it affects how quickly an operator can scale verified reductions. Where budgets are limited, a lower cost per tonne can fund more reductions for the same spend and accelerate adoption of electric flight operations.
Calculating CO2 savings from electric flight requires a like-for-like baseline. That means comparing an electric aircraft to a certified, commercially active piston or turbine aircraft with a similar airframe and mission profile. This ensures the savings are calculated using operational inputs that are measurable, repeatable, and auditable.
The objective is to answer one clear question: how much CO2 would have been emitted to perform the same flight using a conventional aircraft? The difference between that baseline and the electric aircraft is the CO2 saving that can be quantified and certified.
CO2 per litre (AVGAS):
0.717 kg/L × 3.05 kg CO2/kg = 2.187 kg CO2 per litre (rounded to 2.19)
CO2 per hour (AVGAS):
26 L/h × 2.187 kg CO2/L = 56.86 kg CO2 per hour (rounded to 56.9)
Electric CO2 depends on how the aircraft is charged. The example below uses a UK average grid reference factor:
CO2 per hour (electric, example):
35 kWh/h × 0.126 kg CO2/kWh = 4.41 kg CO2 per hour
CO2 saved (using the example grid factor):
56.9 − 4.41 = 52.49 kg CO2 saved per hour (rounded to 52.5)
How many flight hours equal 1 metric tonne of CO2 avoided?
These calculations are shown step-by-step so they can be audited and reproduced. In practice, the same structure is used, but the precise inputs (baseline burn, emissions factors, and charging assumptions) are set by the chosen methodology and project rules.
The short answer is yes. Electric Book & Claim is structured to operate within recognised carbon market and assurance expectations, with a defined methodology, independent oversight, and registry-based traceability. Aerovolt is aligned with Verra and uses methodologies VM0038 and VMD0049, with a deviation supplement that includes aircraft engines and AVGAS 100LL used in cruise-hour baseline calculations.
In practical terms, “regulated” here means there is a documented ruleset for how credits are calculated and issued, how data must be recorded, and how third parties validate and verify outcomes. This increases buyer confidence and reduces the risk of claims being challenged.
What this gives buyers and operators:
You can view the first two project territories below where charging infrastructure is attributed:
Aerovolt is validated and verified by SustainCERT, which acts as an independent external project auditor.
For customers, this means published emissions reduction claims can be supported with documentation and a traceable pathway back to the underlying flight and charging logs.
Like SAF Book & Claim, you receive a carbon reduction report and certificate designed to support compliant reporting for your flight operations. Credits are issued once electric flight activity has accumulated and been reconciled under the applicable rules. The digital credit is then held in the Verra Registry (or relevant registry process), where it can be tracked and retired.
The certificate package is built to be practical for sustainability teams and defensible during audit. It is designed to show what activity occurred, how reductions were calculated, and how the claim is protected against double counting.
Typically, purchasers receive:
If your claims are audited, they can be traced back to the underlying flight and charging logs at source, creating a clear chain of evidence from operations through to certificate issuance and retirement.
In other words, you are not buying an abstract offset. You are purchasing a verified, traceable emissions reduction claim linked to real electric flight activity.
In electric aviation, Electric Book & Claim (EBC Credit) is an accounting mechanism that attributes verified electric aircraft flight hours to a defined energy source. Claims are linked directly to logged electric flight activity, rather than to generic grid electricity consumption or estimated averages.
This approach allows electric flight operations to be accounted for consistently across different airfields and charging arrangements. The claim is anchored in measured aircraft energy use and recorded flight hours, creating a clear and auditable connection between the aircraft, the energy consumed, and the resulting emissions outcome.
Forestry and nature-based carbon projects are widely criticised because their climate impact is often uncertain, reversible, and delayed.
Electric Book & Claim avoids these issues by focusing on real electric flight activity occurring in the present.
Electric Book & Claim in electric aviation is not an offset based on future promises. It is a transparent accounting mechanism that links real electric flight activity to measurable energy use.
Electric Book & Claim is designed to be adopted without disrupting flight operations. The aim is to make certificate allocation as automated as possible using operational data you already generate, such as flight hours, aircraft utilisation, mission records, and measured energy use.
We are integrating our carbon accounting into the back end and APIs of flight operations platforms (for example, SkyLegs). This allows mission tracking to be automated while allocating the correct volume of EBC Credits and certificates to the operator as flights are logged.
How it works in practice:
Because we have only recently launched, integrations will take time to complete across all platforms. In the meantime, an independent tracking option will be provided on this site so operators can log flights manually and still receive the correct certificate outputs.
Our preference is to automate the process end-to-end wherever possible. Automation reduces admin time, improves data quality, and provides operators and customers faster access to verifiable reporting outputs.
In short, no. (See ICAO CORSIA background: ICAO CORSIA.) When CORSIA methodologies were established in 2016, certified electric aircraft and charging networks suitable for baseline CO2 calculations were not widely anticipated. As a result, CORSIA policy and eligible methodologies will take time to catch up with this category.
However, lack of CORSIA eligibility does not prevent Electric Book & Claim from being useful. Many organisations want credible, auditable emissions reductions for voluntary reporting, customer programmes, and internal decarbonisation targets, particularly where electric flight is already taking place.
Electric Book & Claim has therefore been designed initially for:
Governments and policymakers have already shown strong interest in Electric Book & Claim, so eligibility and policy alignment may evolve in the future as electric aviation scales and baseline methodologies become more widely adopted.
In the meantime, purchasers can still use certificates to support transparent reporting and defensible claims, provided they use appropriate claim language aligned with their disclosure framework.
If you would like to purchase EBC Credits, discuss integrations, or review the accounting approach in more detail, please contact carbon@aerovolt.co.uk or call (+44) 790 33 11111.
If you are an operator or platform partner, it is helpful to include a short note on your fleet type, typical monthly flight hours, and whether you currently log flights through an operations platform or manually. This allows us to recommend the fastest implementation route.
