CAAS sets up Asia Pacific Sustainable Aviation Centre

29 July 2025

On 10 July 2025, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (“CAAS”) announced that it has set up the Asia Pacific Sustainable Aviation Centre (“APSAC”) to advance sustainable aviation in the Asia Pacific region through policy research, collaboration, and capacity building. An Advisory Council comprising senior executives from key partners in the aviation, energy, and green financing sectors has been set up to guide and direct APSAC in its work.

Subsequently, on 14 July 2025, CAAS, the Advisory Council partners and APSAC signed a Memorandum of Understanding to formalise their cooperation to strengthen sustainable aviation through APSAC. On the same day, CAAS, the Advisory Council members and APSAC also engaged the International Civil Aviation Organization (“ICAO”) Secretary-General and over 20 Directors-General of Civil Aviation from the Asia Pacific region in a Roundtable on Advancing Sustainable Aviation to discuss the sustainable aviation priorities and plans of Asia Pacific states and civil aviation authorities and how APSAC could support them.

APSAC is intended to help Asia Pacific states advance sustainable aviation in a pragmatic way that would achieve both development and sustainability goals. It will:

  • undertake policy research in areas such as cleaner aviation fuels, carbon accounting, and carbon market development and green financing;
  • facilitate collaboration across governments, industry, and academia for joint studies and projects to advance sustainable aviation policies and plans for the Asia Pacific region; and
  • drive capability-building among governments and companies through technical assistance and training in areas of sustainable aviation policy development and implementation.

APSAC will pursue four immediate priorities in the first year:

  • Engage Asia Pacific states and civil aviation authorities on their needs and plans for sustainable aviation and understand how it can support them;
  • Engage private sector and academia partners to bring together expertise and resources to help support sustainable aviation efforts in the region;
  • Initiate joint projects, studies and trials with partners to support sustainable aviation policies for the region; and
  • Curate and run capacity-building programmes and conferences.

APSAC is a welcome, positive development and the composition of its Advisory Council demonstrates important commitments from authorities, original equipment manufacturers, and sustainable aviation fuel (“SAF”) providers to assist the aviation industry’s push towards its sustainability goals:

  • The Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (“AAPA”) has a collective ambition to strive for an SAF utilisation target of 5% by 2030, and 10% by the same date for the Oneworld Alliance, both of which include multiple Asia Pacific airlines.
  • ICAO, which includes a significant number of Asia Pacific states, also has a long-term aspirational goal of achieving net-zero cardon dioxide emissions by 2050.

APSAC’s creation may increase opportunities for financiers to provide sustainability-linked loans and green loans in financing related projects for interested parties. In particular, noting that SAF is a key item for sustainability in the aviation sector, CAAS highlighted in its Sustainable Aviation Air Hub Blueprint that the “[c]apacity [of SAF] will need to increase exponentially to meet the demand in 2050 so that the aviation sector can achieve its net zero goal” and “it is critical that [CAAS] provide fuel producers with a demand signal to give them the confidence to make further investments in SAF production, and accelerate global SAF production”.

SAF producers may consider availing themselves of the various green financing options in the market to finance these investments. Thus, APSAC’s establishment and the involvement of fuel providers therein is an encouraging step towards building industry momentum and brainstorming novel methods to achieve development and sustainability goals for the aviation sector in Asia Pacific.

Reference materials

The following materials are available on the CAAS website www.caas.gov.sg: