What does Petrobras’ Cardano move cover?

Brazil’s state-controlled oil company Petrobras has developed two tracking applications on the Cardano blockchain for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and its renewable diesel product, Diesel R. According to a statement from the Cardano Foundation on Wednesday, the projects were designed to digitally verify the environmental attributes of the fuels and prevent the same environmental benefit from being claimed more than once.

The first application was developed with Ledger Labs, part of PUC-Rio, a university in Rio de Janeiro. In this system, the environmental attributes linked to SAF are converted into digital tokens. The goal is to make sustainability claims recordable and auditable.

How does the Book-and-Claim model work?

The application uses the Book-and-Claim model, which separates the physical fuel from its environmental benefit. Under this structure, even if SAF is consumed somewhere else, the associated environmental benefit can still be assigned to an airline, institution or passenger.

The CS-SAF tokens carry metadata aligned with CORSIA, the international aviation carbon offsetting and reduction framework. Passengers can also request these tokens through an app and receive a certificate linked to their own trip.

Second application tracks Diesel R production chain

Petrobras’ second blockchain application creates digital checkpoints across the production, transport and use phases of its renewable diesel fuel Diesel R. According to the Cardano Foundation, the data collected here could support Scope 3 reporting, which covers companies’ indirect emissions from their supply chains.

The main benefits highlighted for companies are:

  • Digital verification of environmental claims
  • Reduced risk of double counting
  • Tracking emissions data across the supply chain

However, the announcement did not include the volume of fuel covered by the applications or a timeline for broader deployment. As a result, the project’s short-term commercial impact remains unclear.

Similar market examples are multiplying

The projects were presented as part of a partnership that began with blockchain training for Petrobras employees in 2023 and expanded in 2025 with research focused on the energy sector. The development points to the growing use of blockchain in tracking energy and sustainability data.

There are similar initiatives in the industry. Shell tracks the environmental attributes of sustainable aviation fuel through the blockchain-based Avelia platform, launched in 2022. According to the company’s September update, the platform has helped add more than 84 million gallons of SAF to the global fuel network since 2022 and has been linked to more than 780,000 tonnes of CO2e reductions through June 2026.

Australia-based Viva Energy also signed an agreement in January with NoviqTech to explore digital Book-and-Claim systems for sustainable aviation fuel. The trend shows that energy and transport companies are increasingly looking at blockchain for traceability and reporting.