Biofuels and Sustainability Issues

Sustainability links

This section of the website presents the views of various organizations and research activities (see Reports) concerning the widespread use of land, water and other resource to produce biomass to be used for the production of liquid transport fuel. Although biomass is a renewable energy source, the development of biofuels raises important issues of Food vs Fuel, Land Availability and Environmental Impact, Indirect Effects and a need for measures (e.g. certification, GHG savings standards and cultivation criteria) to be put in place to ensure sustainability.

The sustainability of biofuels is covered by the EC Joint Research Centre (JRC) project Quality and Performance of Biofuels (BioF)

IDB Biofuels Sustainability Scorecard

The Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Initiative (SECCI) and the Structured and Corporate Finance Department (SCF) of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) have created the IDB Biofuels Sustainability Scorecard based on the sustainability criteria of the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB). The primary objective of the Scorecard is to encourage higher levels of sustainability in biofuels projects by providing a tool to think through the range of complex issues associated with biofuels.

Sustainable Production of Biofuels

The development of sustainable liquid transport fuels, which can replace finite fossil fuels, is essential to guarantee the future security of energy supply in Europe.

Like all industrial processes, production of biofuels requires energy inputs and has an environmental impact. However, first generation biofuels (bioethanol and biodiesel) already offer benefits in terms of GHG and Fossil Fuel savings.

© Copyright CPL Press
Well-to-wheel greenhouse gas emissions (in CO2-equivalents/km) versus total energy use for running a mid-size car over a distance of 100 km - View at larger size >>

The Directive on Renewable Energy stipulates that use of biofuels must result in an overall GHG saving of 35%, in order to qualify towards the ambitious 10% biofuels target in the EU27 by 2020. This rises to 50% from 2017 for existing production, and 60% for new installations from 2017. For plants already operating in January 2008, the GHG requirement will start in April 2013.

Second generation biofuels produced from lignocellulosic materials (e.g, straw, energy crops and forestry residues), could enable far greater reductions in GHG, and innovative fuels created from these feedstocks will count double towards the biofuels target of 10%.

Clearly, the type, location and environmental sensitivity of land used for cultivating biofuel feedstocks is critical, if expansion of biofuel production is to be sustainable and socially acceptable.

The EC Climate Change initiative stipulated that in order to meet sustainability criteria "old forest with no or limited human intervention cannot be used for biofuels cultivation, nor can ’highly biodiverse grasslands’, or lands with a ’high carbon stock’ like wetlands or ’pristine peatlands’"

The Directive on Renewable Energy (December 2008) states further that the EC has to report on compliance with environmental and social sustainability criteria of major biofuel exporting countries. And a bonus of 29g CO₂/MJ will be applied for biofuels derived from degraded/contaminated land.

Enforcement of these conditions requires the establishment of a transparent and rigorous certification system, based upon global standards that objectively quantify various sustainability criteria for such land types. In addition, sustainability standards should cover both direct and indirect impacts on the environment (water, biodiversity, etc) and socio-economic issues (food pricing, land availability, quality of life and social stability).

The EC has also made proposals for incorporating indirect land use changes into biofuels legislation by the end of 2010.

Certification

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.

A strategy to achieve sustainability includes the need for certification systems. Developing certification procedures for biomass feedstock to be used in biofuel production requires identification and assessment of existing systems followed by measures taken to improve them. The existing legal framework should be taken into consideration while learning from recent national initiatives (such as the draft biofuel sustainability ordinance passed by the German Federal Government). Certification procedures need to be applicable at both global and local level and relate both to small farmers or foresters as well as large conglomerates.

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Environmental impact

Some intensive modern farm methods used for food production have a range of negative effects on the environment, such as soil erosion, water shortage, pollution from pesticides and probems with over use of fertilizers (including eutrophication). Eutrophication, the decrease in the biodiversity of an ecosystem as the result of release of chemical nutrients (typically compounds containing nitrogen or phosphorous), is only one threat to biodiversity, which may also be impacted by the replacement of a nutural ecosystem by monocultures, whether annual fields of rapeseed, sugarbeet or cereals, or large areas of coppice or short rotation forest.

For example, palm oil is one of the cheapest sources of vegetable oil and is used widely in the food and cosmetics industry, and more recently as a feedstock for first generation biofuels. The clearing of biodiverse rainforest for expansion of palm plantations has been the subject of a number of protests and campaigns by conservation groups. Conservation scientitsts have expressed particular concerns over the release of stored carbon and destruction of habitat for endangered species [Source: Biofuel Plantations on Forested Lands: Double Jeopardy for Biodiversity and Climate and Conservation Biology].

Competition for water resources is aother increasingly significant issue for biomass production.

Land availability

The amount of biomass required to replace a significant proportion of the fossil fuel used in transport runs into millions of tonnes. Hence, a crucial question is that of biomass yield. Higher yields obviously enable a similar amount of biofuel to be replaced using less land. However, land use efficiency may also be improved by selecting an overall production chain that can use a high yielding biomass crop. For instance most oils seed crops only produce a few tonnes per hectare per annum, sugar and starch crops may generate 5 to 10 tonnes, while significantly greater yields come from woody plants – or from conventional crops such as cereals if the straw can be used.

Greater utilisation of such materials depends on the development of second generation biofuels. Even if these higher yielding methods come to market, land availability still sets limits to what may be produced.

Suggestions have been made for the movement of biomass or biomass derived fuels from the more productive regions to the more industrialised countries. Should this type of movement be encouraged? Find out more about the constraints of land use on production of liquid biofuels.

Food versus fuel

The global population continues to grow, in places at an alarming rate, and will need to be fed and will expect to live an improved life style, consuming more energy. This raises questions of ‘Food versus Fuel'; how much land and other resources are available, how should they be used and what are the priorities?

A number of overview reports covering some of the issues raised in this section are listed below. Further information is made available through downloads or web links as available.

Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC)

First generation biofuel production on agricultural land may displace existing agricultural production, causing land use change in another location. This Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) may occur in a neighbouring area or even in another country hundreds of miles away, where an area of high biodiversity may be cleared to make more land available for growing food or oil crops.

For example, it has been suggested that increased use of rape seed oil for biodiesel production in Europe could reduce the amount available for the food industry, leading in turn to increased imports of palm oil (indirectly increasing deforestation in producer countries).

An extensive literature review on ILUC has been carried out by E4Tech as part of a wider ILUC Study, commissioned by the UK Department of Transport. This covers first generation biofuels including: bioethanol from wheat, bioethanol from sugarcane, biodiesel from palm and biodiesel from rapeseed.

The indirect effect of biofuels has been the subject of a number of influential reports, including the Renewable Fuels Agency Review of the Indirect Effects of Biofuels (a.k.a. The Gallagher Report), which led to a change in biofuels policy in the UK in 2008.

ILUC is also a central theme of the report Biofuels - Handle with Care, jointly published in November 2009 by BirdLife European Division, European Environmental Bureau, FERN, Friends of the Earth Europe, Oxfam International, and Transport and Environment

By 2010, legislation covering indirect effects of land use will be added to the EC Renewable Energy Directive (COM (2008) 19).

However, there has been much debate in 2009 about the assumptions made and methods used to establish the impact of Indirect Land Use Change. A global concenus on certification and sustainability criteria for biofuels would address many of the issues related to ILUC.

An IEA Bioenergy Workshop on the Impact of ILUC was held in May 2009 in conjunction with ExCo63 , including expert presentations on this issue.

Reports

Renewable Fuels Agency Review of the Indirect Effects of Biofuels

On 21 February 2008, the UK Secretary of State for Transport Ruth Kelly invited the Renewable Fuels Agency to undertake a Review of the Indirect Effects of Biofuels. This was done in the light of new evidence suggesting that an increasing demand for biofuels might indirectly cause carbon emissions because of land use change, and concerns that demand for biofuels may be driving food insecurity by causing food commodity price increases.

Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels: Global Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Biofuels Production Version Zero

(8.9 Mb - link added December 2008)

In June 2007, the Steering Board of the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB) published draft principles for sustainable biofuels production, as the basis for a global stakeholder discussion around requirements for sustainable biofuels. A period of global consultation followed, and this document (Version Zero) presents the resulting draft standard – principles and criteria, along with key elements of the guidance for implementation.

Sustainability Standards for Bioenergy (1.5 Mb PDF) – Uwe R. Fritsche, Katja Hünecke, Andreas Hermann, Falk Schulze and Kirsten Wiegmann with contributions from Michel Adolphe, Öko-Institut e.V., Darmstadt. Published by WWF Germany, Frankfurt am Main, November 2006.

Please note that the material in this report is copyright of WWF Germany, Frankfurt am Main and that any reproduction in full or in part of this publication must mention the title and credit the copyright holder.

The following material is abstracted from the report:

Sustainability standards for bioenergy are a key issue from an environmental and nature-protection viewpoint. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Germany is promoting activities in this direction. To further the ongoing discussion and offer a concrete proposal for standards, WWF Germany commissioned a brief study from the Öko-Institut (Institute for Applied Ecology). The study provides an overview of key ecological and social impacts of bioenergy and develops a core set of standards which could ensure the sustainability of future bioenergy supplies.

This report begins in Section 1 with an introduction to key bioenergy issues, summarizing “drivers”, global potential, the key issues of sustainable biomass and standards.

Section 2 gives a brief description of key potential problems and conflict areas arising from increased bioenergy supply, and derives core sustainability standards for each problem area. The standards were determined on the basis of a broad review of existing labeling and certification schemes for bio-based products and previous work carried out by the authors. A distinction is made between the use of biogenic residues/wastes and the dedicated cultivation of bioenergy crops. The study focuses on the latter.

Section 3 discusses the legal background to implementing sustainability standards with special focus on international rules, EU legal settings and certain German laws. Legal instruments are also briefly described.

Approaches to implementing sustainability standards for biomass is introduced in Section 4, which also draws conclusions from the previous sections and gives recommendations, above all on the need to begin introducing sustainability standards for bioenergy. Furthermore, some open questions are addressed.

The report closes with a reference section, a list of acronyms and annexes – offering additional thoughts on environmental assessment methods – and synopses with details on sustainability standards for biomass.