On 5 February 2026, ISCC hosted its third Technical Stakeholder Meeting on RFNBOs, welcoming over 230 participants from around the world. Co-Chair Sonia Rando Matos (Supply Chain Director, Air Products) opened the meeting with a warm welcome and guided participants through a full agenda focused on regulatory developments and the role of credible sustainability certification in building a stable and bankable RFNBOs market.
ISCC Updates on RFNBOs
Dr Dario Formenti (Senior System Manager, ISCC) opened the technical programme with an overview of the ISCC EU RFNBOs scheme and its development since 2022. He highlighted ISCC’s longstanding role as one of the world’s largest certification systems and explained how certification supports market access and regulatory compliance across sectors such as aviation and maritime transport, which are facing increasingly complex decarbonisation requirements.
Dario also outlined key milestones, including the European Commission’s recognition of ISCC EU RFNBOs in late 2024, the first certificates issued, and ISCC’s ongoing work to operationalise a fit-for-purpose RFNBO certification scheme through multi-stakeholder dialogue, practical guidance and training. He concluded by pointing to future certification opportunities, including low-carbon fuels, and invited participants to the upcoming ISCC Global Sustainability Conference in Brussels.
The 16th ISCC Sustainability Conference is a global flagship event, bringing the wider sustainability community together to share experiences, knowledge of best practices and innovations.
Policy Developments
The policy session continued with an update from Bernd Kuepker (European Commission), who focused on RFNBO-related policy developments, in particular the Sustainable Transport Investment Plan (STIP). He underlined that aviation and maritime transport still largely rely on conventional fuels, making renewable and low-carbon alternatives indispensable for achieving near-term EU climate targets. At the same time, limited commercial-scale e-fuel production and resulting investment uncertainty remain major challenges. Current EU efforts, therefore, focus on mobilising funding, while the Delegated Act on Low-Carbon Fuels of December 2025 is expected to recognise voluntary certification schemes by the end of 2026.
Germany’s national approach was then presented by Eric Fee and Valerie Ludwig from the German Federal Environment Agency (UBA). They outlined draft legislative revisions extending RFNBOs-related quota targets to 2040, introducing new obligations for aviation fuel suppliers and establishingdedicated RFNBOs sub-quotas. The speakers also highlighted UBA’s administrative and supervisory role, including developing procedures, approving Certification Bodies, publishing national default values, and the ongoing transition toward a fully digitalised RFNBO registry, supported by recent national statistics on accredited auditors and certified production sites.
New: Preparing for ISCC EU RFNBO Compliance with Pre-Certification
In the late afternoon, Juan Marulanda (Sustainability Manager, ISCC) and Julia Nevares (Senior Project Manager, MEO Carbon Solutions) introduced the upcoming ISCC EU RFNBO Pre-Certification process. Pre-certification provides a document-based readiness check before full-scale audits, helping companies demonstrate regulatory alignment at an early stage. The official Pre-Certification Guidance Document is scheduled for release by the end of March.
Join our first webinar on ISCC EU RFNBO Pre-Certification!
Discover how Pre-Certification helps demonstrate early RED III and RFNBO alignment and get your key questions answered in a live Q&A.
Roundtable Discussions: Certification, Trust and Financing
The afternoon featured two roundtable discussions exploring how the RFNBOs market can develop despite regulatory and financial uncertainty. In the first session, Nicolò Aurisano (Senior Sustainability & LCA Specialist, MAERSK), Tom Strengers (Policy & Sustainability Manager, SkyNRG) and Filip Raketic (Sales Expert, INERATEC) discussed how industry actors can navigate regulatory complexity to enable capacity expansion. Key challenges identified included aligning investment and supply-chain interests with evolving policies while maintaining competitiveness.
The second roundtable, moderated by Christian Scherhag (Senior Sustainability Manager, ISCC), reinforced the importance of clear and stable policy frameworks and the role of robust, credible certification schemes in reducing uncertainty. Aram Pedinian Mohr (Vice President Commercial, HIF Global), Trishla Shah (Manager, Systemiq) and Timo Bollerhey (CEO, H2 Global), who leads Hintco, the intermediary non-profit organisation operating a double-auction mechanism for green hydrogen and its derivatives, also called for longer-term regulatory certainty to increase investors’ willingness to engage in RFNBOs project development.
Building on the roundtable’s call for clearer long‑term policy signals and reduced investment uncertainty, Trishla Shah earlier introduced Project SkyPower, illustrating how these very challenges are already shaping the future of eSAF production in Europe under the tight timelines of the ReFuelEU Aviation mandate. She highlighted that early investment decisions for first‑wave eSAFplants are urgently needed to enable scalable operations by 2030, yet unresolved regulatory and financial risks, mirroring the barriers identified in the roundtable, continue to slow market development.
Co-Chair Election Results
The Technical Stakeholder Meeting on RFNBOs concluded with the election of the new Co-Chair. We are pleased to congratulate Aram Pedinian Mohr on joining Sonia Rando Matos in shaping future committee agendas, steering discussions, and supporting the further development of RFNBOs at ISCC.
We would like to thank all speakers and participants for their contributions and for the exchange throughout the day. We are already looking forward to the next meeting!
In the meantime, we invite you to browse through all the presentations of the day here.