The region aviation built.
Washington state is the largest aerospace cluster in the United States, and it has translated that industrial base into some of the most aggressive sustainable-aviation policy in North America. Seattle 2027 holds ISAR in the place where the industry, the research community, and the legislation already exist, and where each pushes the other forward.
Boeing Commercial Airplanes remains headquartered in the region (Renton and Everett), and a substantial majority of aerospace jobs in the state are connected to Boeing or its supplier network. Washington has led U.S. states in aerospace exports for more than a decade.
SAF tax credit
Washington's 2023 SAF legislation provides a per-gallon tax credit of up to two dollars for sustainable aviation fuel produced or used in the state, layered on top of the federal credit under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Climate Commitment Act & Clean Fuels Standard
Economy-wide cap-and-invest covers most of the state's emissions; aviation fuels themselves are exempt from the cap, but are addressed by the Clean Fuels Standard, which sets carbon-intensity targets and a SAF-blend pathway scaling over time.
Port of Seattle SAF target
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has committed to a 10% SAF blend in all jet fuel uplifted at the airport by 2028, with regional supply sourcing as a strategic preference.
FAA ASCENT Center of Excellence
Washington State University co-leads, with MIT, the FAA's ASCENT Center of Excellence for Alternative Jet Fuels and Environment, anchoring research from feedstocks through fuel qualification across more than a dozen partner institutions.
Industrial cluster
Beyond Boeing, the regional sustainability cluster includes ZeroAvia's hydrogen-electric manufacturing in Everett, an emerging SAF R&D Center at Paine Field developing under the Cascadia Sustainable Aviation Accelerator, and a growing roster of fuel and propulsion start-ups.
National laboratory presence
The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland anchors federally-funded research on bioenergy, atmospheric chemistry, and the lifecycle of low-carbon fuels, with work directly relevant to the conference programme.
The Pacific Northwest is among the densest sustainable-aviation clusters in North America. Production projects, refinery conversions, renewable-fuel facilities, and offtake agreements span the corridor from British Columbia through Washington and Oregon and across to the Northern Rockies, alongside policy frameworks that make the supply economics work.
Many of the production pathways the conference programme covers in theory, alcohol-to-jet, HEFA, power-to-liquids, refinery co-processing, are being built out commercially within a day's drive of the venue. The 2027 programme will reflect the work that lives in the region.
Why this place, this year.
The case for Seattle 2027 is not the cityscape. It is that the work the conference exists to discuss is happening here, at scale, across the regional aerospace cluster, the FAA Center of Excellence at Washington State University, the regional national-laboratory presence, and the Port of Seattle's regional SAF programme.
Conference venue, accommodation, and travel guidance will be published once the dates are confirmed and contracts are in place.