Cardano Foundation and Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras are taking their partnership to the next level, announcing two new blockchain applications targeting sustainable aviation fuel and renewable Diesel R. What started as a corporate education program has evolved into something considerably more ambitious: putting fuel supply chains on-chain to fight greenwashing and improve traceability across Brazil’s energy sector. From classroom to supply chain
The Cardano-Petrobras relationship began in December 2023, when Cardano Academy launched a blockchain education initiative for Petrobras’ roughly 40,000 employees. The first 500 participants received evolving NFTs as credentials. By 2025, Cardano Foundation had formalized a collaboration with PUC-Rio, one of Brazil’s leading research universities, to develop real blockchain applications for the renewable fuel space, with sustainable aviation fuel, known as SAF, as the primary focus.
Petrobras commenced its first commercial deliveries of domestically produced SAF in December 2025, starting with an initial batch of 3,000 cubic meters. The company has set a target of meeting 100% of Brazil’s domestic SAF demand through co-processing by 2027 to 2029. SAF is jet fuel produced from non-petroleum sources like agricultural waste, used cooking oil, or other biomass. What the applications actually do
The first application focuses on tokenizing the SAF supply chain, creating verifiable, immutable records of where the fuel came from, how it was processed, and how it moved through the logistics network. The second application is a decentralized app, or dApp, designed to reward airline passengers who fly on SAF-powered routes. As of November 2025, the project had advanced to the point of active development, with incentive mechanics being built to encourage consumer participation in sustainable fuel adoption. Alongside these, the partnership has developed what it calls a Proof of Atenas system, an attendance and training verification tool using NFC cards and 3D-printed physical totems to record employee participation in immutable on-chain logs.
A pilot ran in 2024, and expanded internal implementation has been under discussion through 2026. Why this partnership is a landmark for Cardano in the region
Cardano Foundation describes the Petrobras collaboration as its first governmental partnership in Latin America. Petrobras is majority state-owned, which means this is effectively a blockchain project with Brazilian government involvement.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
