The current state of using sustainable aviation fuel in Finland, Norway and Sweden

The purpose of the thesis was to investigate the use of sustainable aviation fuel in Finland, Norway and Sweden. The target of the thesis was to help the working life representative to illustrate the current situation of the industry and the future prospects of sustainable aviation in these particular countries. In addition, the aim was that the working life representative is be able to utilize the results of the study in their own research work. The mandator of the thesis was Neste, which is a Finnish oil refining and marketing company. Finally, the results of the thesis were presented to the working life representative. The theoretical framework covered the definition of sustainable aviation fuel, its criteria and production processes. In addition, the regulations and legislation of the European Union that affect the use of sustainable aviation fuels in Europe were examined in this thesis. Literature, researches and articles in this field were utilized in the theoretical basis of the thesis. This thesis represents a qualitative research approach, and semi-structured thematic interviews were used for the implementation. The thematic interviews were conducted as individual interviews using video connection. Seven experts in the field were selected for the interviews using snowball and elite sampling. The main themes were the current situation, challenges, pricing policy and future prospects of sustainable aviation fuels. In addition, the benchmarking approach was utilized in the thesis by comparing the situations of the use of sustainable aviation fuel in Finland, Norway and Sweden. The most important result of the thesis is that Finland lags behind Norway and Sweden in the use of sustainable aviation fuel. The results showed that the main reasons for this are the lack of long-term regulations that would oblige the use of sustainable aviation fuel. In general, the high price and challenging availability of raw materials were recognized as specific challenges. Based on the results, further development proposals were created to enable the wider use of sustainable aviation fuel in Finland