Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is ICAO Finvest Hub?
| ICAO Finvest Hub is an ICAO-led initiative that connects sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) project developers with financiers, governments, and industry partners. It provides some screening, technical assistance, and networking opportunity to accelerate investment in SAF projects worldwide. |
2. What is Finvest@ETAF?
| Finvest@ETAF is a collaboration between ICAO Finvest Hub and the International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA) Energy Transition Accelerator Financing (ETAF) platform. It adapts ETAF’s matchmaking system to be configured for assessing SAF projects |
3. Why was Finvest created?
| Finvest was established to provide support for a critical financing gap between promising SAF projects and financing. While some financing is occurring today, it is not at the scale required and general considered challenging. By linking vetted projects with capital and expertise, Finvest hopes to help bridge that gap and supports ICAO’s climate goals. |
4. Who can participate in Finvest?
| Finvest engages financiers (banks, funds, development finance institutions), SAF producers, airlines, governments, multilateral organizations, and technical experts. Primary participation is aimed at those seeking to develop a SAF project and those aiming to invest in, or finance aviation decarbonisation projects. |
5. What types of financing opportunities are available?
| Opportunities could include equity and debt financing to blended finance, green bonds, offtake-backed instruments, and risk-sharing mechanisms. Match making hubs such as the IRENA partnership [Finvest@ETAF] will help facilitate this. |
6. How are SAF projects eligible for Finvest?
| Projects can be submitted through the ICAO ‘submit project tab’ and undergo a preliminary sustainability and technical readiness screening aligned with ICAO standards and best practices. This helps assess whether projects should seek additional capacity building or whether they are at a readiness stage to move to a ‘financing hub’. It is expected at the financing hub stage, much deeper financial due diligence will occur, potentially under a non-disclosure agreement. |
7. Does Finvest provide funding directly?
| No. Finvest does not directly finance projects. Instead, it connects vetted projects with potential financiers and partners, via match making hubs. It can also offer capacity-building support and resources to support project readiness. |
8. How does Finvest support developing countries?
| Finvest will endeavour to provide capacity building for developing and least-developed states, helping them prepare bankable SAF projects, access finance, and benefit economically from SAF production and supply chains. Some of this support will be directly linked and complimentary to the ICAO ACT-SAF program. |
9. How does the ETAF platform support Finvest?
| The ETAF platform provides Finvest with a ready-made, trusted infrastructure for project evaluation and matchmaking. By leveraging ETAF’s screening tools and network, SAF projects can be assessed consistently and connected efficiently with financiers. |
10. Who are the financiers involved through ETAF?
| ETAF currently works with 14 international financial institutions. These include multilateral development banks, climate funds, and commercial lenders and this will serve as the initial matchmaking hub for SAF opportunities under Finvest. |
11. Noting that there are 14 partner financial institutions on the ETAF platform, should other institutions want to invest through the Finvest Hub scheme, do they need to become an ETAF partner?
| Yes, if going through ETAF, however, it is possible that other platform relationships will be established which could include other financial institutions. The proposed IRENA/ETAF platform is not intended to be exclusive. |
12. Who will carry out the screening/due diligence portion of the review process? Will transparency of screening/due diligence results be ensured for applicants and investors?
| ICAO will largely act as a collector and organiser of key data. ICAO will assess for alignment with agreed sustainability criteria. (CORSIA Eligible Fuel). Financial assessment as well as due diligence on the project applicants themselves is expected to be conducted by financial institutions. Maximum transparency will be pursued where feasible. |
13. Will information (such as investment volumes, which financial institutions, which SAF companies) be published through the Finvest Hub?
| This is still being determined, however, where feasible transparency will be the objective, subject to any confidentiality restrictions. Consolidated (anonymised) statistics will be explored where confidentiality is a challenge. |
14. Where can I find additional information and resources?
| The Finvest Resources tab hosts an array of different information including partner reports and practical tools. In addition, visit the ICAO Environment Website or ACT-SAF for additional guidance, data, and training materials. |
15. How do I get involved or stay updated?
| Interested stakeholders can register through the FINVEST contact form or sign up for updates and invitations to future workshops and matchmaking events. |