Kobe City: Promotion of Waste Cooking Oil Collection for Building a Sustainable Society

Press Release (June 28, 2024)
Decarbonization Promotion Division, Environment Bureau

The

City of Kobe is pleased to announce that JGC Holdings Corporation (Head Office: Yokohama; Chairman & CEO: Masayuki Sato), Revo International Corporation (Head Office: Kyoto; CEO: Tetsuya Koshikawa), NPO Blue Earth Project (Head office: Chuo-ku, Kobe; President and CEO: Yoshiyuki Yamatani), with the aim of expanding efforts to recover waste cooking oil, which is the raw material for SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel). The agreement is aimed at expanding efforts to promote the recovery of waste cooking oil, which is the raw material for SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel), and to expand efforts to build a sustainable society.

The

city

has

Kobe Airport, which will begin operating scheduled international flights around 2030, and considers the use of sustainable aviation fuel (“SAF”) to be one of the most promising ways to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
　Waste cooking oil is one of the raw materials of SAF, and the purpose of this agreement is to realize that each citizen can contribute to decarbonization and achieve a decarbonized and resource-recycling society by expanding efforts to collect waste cooking oil, especially from households.

2. Cooperation Matters

(1) Matters related to the collection of household waste cooking oil
(2) Matters related to the production of SAF and other biomass fuels using waste cooking oil
(3) Matters related to providing opportunities to widely disseminate information about this project
(4) Other matters necessary to realize the purpose of this agreement

3. Division of roles among the parties concerned

4. Specific actions based on the agreement

: z Beginning in the

fall of 2024, dedicated boxes will be installed at several public facilities in the city to demonstrate the collection of waste cooking oil.

z

Around the same time, a public awareness event will be held among related parties to promote the collection of waste cooking oil.

[Image of the collection of waste cooking oil in the city]

[Domestic production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)
SAF is an aviation fuel produced from waste cooking oil, vegetable and animal fats, woody biomass, etc., and can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80% compared to conventional fuel produced from crude oil.
　Although SAF production has begun worldwide, mainly in Europe and the United States, commercial-scale SAF production has not yet started in Japan. JGC Holdings, Cosmo Oil, and Revo International plan to establish SAFFAIRE SKY ENERGY, a domestic SAF production company, in November 2022 to produce approximately 30,000 kiloliters of SAF annually for the first time in Japan, using only waste cooking oil generated in Japan as raw material. This project is a subsidized project adopted* by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). Construction of the SAF production facility is currently underway, and is expected to be completed by the end of 2024, with supply starting in early 2025.

SAF production equipment under construction (courtesy of SAFFAIRE SKY ENERGY)