Petrobras Pilots Cardano to Prove Green Fuel Claims—Can Public Chains Stop Double‑Counting?
Brazil’s state‑controlled oil company Petrobras is piloting two Cardano‑based systems to evidence environmental attributes tied to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and a renewable diesel known as Diesel R, according to an announcement Wednesday. The work involves the Cardano Foundation and researchers at PUC‑Rio and remains in the research‑and‑development phase.
Book‑and‑Claim on a Public Chain
One pilot centers on a book‑and‑claim model for SAF, in which the environmental benefit can be assigned separately from the physical fuel. The Cardano blockchain would log the origin of that benefit and who ultimately claims it, with the stated goal of reducing risks such as counting the same benefit more than once.
The Cardano Foundation says the system can also issue digital certificates to individual airline passengers. Travelers would enter departure and destination airports and receive a record tied to an allocation of SAF, according to the Foundation.
Diesel R: Lifecycle Checkpoints and Scope 3 Support
A separate pilot applies similar tooling to Petrobras’s Diesel R. It creates digital checkpoints as the fuel is produced, transported, and used, producing what the developers describe as a continuous record of its lifecycle. The setup is intended in part to support reporting of Scope 3 emissions—indirect greenhouse‑gas emissions across a company’s value chain.
“The energy transition will depend as much on trust as it does on new fuels,” said Cardano Foundation LATAM Business Development Lead Rafael Fraga in a statement. “As value chains become more complex, proving where environmental data comes from, how it moves, and who can rely on it becomes critical. Public blockchain gives us the opportunity to make that trust part of the system by design, providing industries with a shared, verifiable foundation for the next generation of energy markets.”
R&D Today, Broader Experiments in Brazil
Both Petrobras projects remain R&D rather than commercial rollouts. They add to a broader pattern of large companies testing public blockchains for verification when records cross organizational boundaries, especially in supply chains and sustainability reporting.
Separately, Brazilian financial market infrastructure firm CSD BR said a day earlier that it will begin mirroring records for shares of BTG Pactual investment funds on the XRP Ledger. The company stated it has more than $4.2 trillion (22 trillion reais) in registered assets and will keep legally authoritative records in its existing systems, using the blockchain as an added verification and auditing layer.