Biofuels Certification

Certification links

Background

As biofuels gain market share and international trading of biomass, raw materials and biofuels expands, the need to ensure socio-economic sustainability along the whole supply chain becomes more pressing. This includes aspects such as land use, agricultural practices, competition with food, energy efficiency and GHG emissions, life cycle analysis (LCA), etc.

Sustainability of a given biofuel needs to be guaranteed in a transparent way. This this is only possible if appropriate policy measures influencing and steering the overall supply chain are adopted. A strategy to achieve sustainability includes the need for certification systems.

EC certification of sustainable biofuels

On 10 June 2010, the EC announced its scheme for certifying sustainable biofuels, part of a set of guidelines explaining how the Renewable Energy Directive, coming into effect in December 2010, should be implemented.

Requirements for certification of sustainability

There is a strong need to improve the database and information required to quantitatively measure sustainability. Existing LCA and other published studies are based on assumptions and projections for different technologies and there are quantitative and qualitative differences in the basic input data that have been used for different studies. Hence, the end results depend on the set of input data and assumptions and often require future validation.

The generation and validation of sets of data to be used for such studies have to be addressed as a part of R&D programmes to be established.

Global-Bio-Pact, co-funded under FP7, aims to develop and harmonize global sustainability certification systems for biomass production, conversion systems and trade in order to prevent negative socio-economic impacts.

German draft biofuel sustainability ordinance - a model for certification systems
(Source: FNR Press Release, February 2008)

To meet growing public and policy demands for sustainable production of biofuels and biomass, the German Federal Government passed a (draft) biofuel sustainability ordinance. Under this ordinance, biofuel producers will in future enjoy fiscal and administrative support only if certain sustainability criteria are adhered to.

In 2007, the Cologne-based consultancy méo presented the results of a project funded by BMELV (the German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection). The proposal focuses on certificates which guarantee that sustainability standards are kept in the production of biofuels and the relevant raw materials and specific GHG emissions occurring along the value chain can be calculated.

In addition to the EU, some important suppliers of raw materials were included in a two-year field test of the system, namely Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The project developers stressed that for certification to work effectively, sustainability requirements need to cover all other industries using agricultural resources, not just biofuels. Otherwise, there is a risk that the issues will merely be moved to another sector. For example, biofuels from plant oil may be made sustainable, but food or chemical production could be diverted to environmentally sensitive areas instead.

Label for Sustainable Biofuels (EU-CH)

In Switzerland, a labelling system for Sustainable Biofuels (311 kb PDF) has been developed by ENERS Energy Concept in collaboration with Bioenergy and Energy Planning Research Group (BPE) - EPFL, Alcosuisse and Fair Energy. The label will denote that a biofuel has met specified minmum standards relating to:

Technical criteria (technical quality of biofuels, EN 14214-15376)
Ecological criteria (greenhouse gas emissions, water, energy, global impact...)
Social criteria (competition with food, local communities, working conditions...)

The system is based on a three-stage process:

Evaluation
- Pre-evaluation of GHG and global ecological balance
- Global evaluation of technical, environmental, and social compliance
Control and Verification
Monitoring (after the label is granted)

An online evaluation tool for "famestar" and "ethastar" is due to be launched in Autumn 2009.