Biofuels and Sustainability

Biofuels have been increasing in popularity, since they are promising substitutes for fossil fuels and are expected to contribute to reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Moreover, the production of biofuels is a means of alleviating poverty and developing both rural and agricultural areas. However, many researchers and institutions, such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), voice scientific scepticism about the expected contributions of biofuel use. They also stress that the production and use of biofuels will lead to deforestation, water supply contamination and water depletion. The production and use of biofuels will have enormous impacts on the environment, the economy and the society. Clearly, these impacts are multitiered and complex. Therefore, strategies for biofuel use must be established through comprehensive analyses and scientific evaluations, with consideration given to complex socioeconomic issues, in order to achieve global sustainability. It is also important to consider that optimum solutions among boundary levels, such as global, regional and national levels, may vary and that these strategies must be coordinated in order to meet the demands of different optimum solutions. From this perspective, an interdisciplinary and integrated approach is best. However, many studies on biofuel, including those in the natural and social science fields, fail to use this type of approach. The aim of the present research is to comprehensively analyse the use of biofuels at global, regional and national levels using the sustainability science approach and attempt to assess biofuel use strategies from an interdisciplinary perspective. Sustainability science is a new academic area that addresses complicated issues, such as biofuel production and use, by restructuring problems and then proposing policy options.

In this chapter, the stakeholder perspectives described in Chap. 1.2 are applied to the analysis of biofuel deployment around the world, which will be described as detailed case studies in Part II of this book. Table 1 summarizes the review. Based on the review of case studies included in Part II, seven key stakeholder categories can be summarized as follows.

Because of the surge in international crop prices in 2008, production of biofuel derived from crops has been criticized for expanding crop demands and threatening food security. In the USA, where corn is the main raw material for bioethanol, the demand for corn has rapidly increased from 18 million tons in 2001 to 100 million tons in 2008. Further, the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) included in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires refiners, blenders, and importers to use 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022, including more than 21 billion gallons of second-generation biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol. The use of corn as an energy source is expected to continue further expansion.

Fossil fuel consumption is a major cause of climate change. Biofuels can reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and thus reduce carbon dioxide emissions, because biofuels are carbon neutral. More specifically, the carbon dioxide that is emitted when a biofuel is burned merely returns to the atmospheric carbon dioxide that was taken into plants from the atmosphere by photosynthesis. Therefore, biofuels seem to be a very effective means for reducing these emissions, at least at first sight.

Growing demands for food and biofuels are causing deforestation in the tropics. Although the rate of deforestation is decreasing, it is still high and problematic (FAO 2010). Deforestation is mainly the transformation of tropical forest to agricultural land, and it causes environmental problems related to climate change, soil carbon sequestration, ecosystem services, and biodiversity. Reducing tropical deforestation is an international priority especially for the production of Indonesian palm oil and Brazilian soybean oil.

This chapter examines the social and economic impacts of biofuels in East Asia by analyzing four country case studies, Indonesia, India, China, and Japan. These impacts vary widely depending on specific country conditions. Analysis of the main policies and market conditions in these countries showed that they all emphasized rural development, and Japan prioritized GHG emissions reductions, while the others prioritized energy security. The biofuel promotion targets of India and Indonesia were initially overambitious while Japan’s and China’s were more conservative. All four countries investigated alternative feedstocks and second generation biofuels. Regarding impacts, all four countries have recognized the limitations of biofuels for energy security. Biofuels may have some potential to contribute to rural development, even in Japan, but this is likely to be modest. The idea of growing non-food crops on wastelands is not very realistic, due to the need for significant inputs of fertilizer and water. In any case it is not always clear how much wasteland actually exists, and often it is actually being used for some other economically valuable purpose or providing ecosystem services. Biofuels do seem useful for recycling waste materials, especially in Japan. The main policy implication is that caution is desirable, and high unrealistic targets should be avoided due to risks of food-fuel conflict and limited supplies of land, water, and labor, and because the extent of the impacts and social benefits of biofuels is still unclear. Modest targets, near current utilization rates, may be more sustainable. Finally, it is suggested to promote the use of sustainability standards, which could enable biofuel stakeholders to demonstrate the sustainability of particular production methods in particular circumstances.

Authors have conducted two case studies of stakeholder analysis on the utilization of sugarcane-based bioethanol in Brazil and palm-based biodiesel in Indonesia. Our research has focused primarily on the aspects of exporting these biofuels to Japan in order to give more concreteness to the stakeholder interviews. While these cases provide unique contexts in the production of feedstocks and distillation processes in each country, they also indicate common features that have to be considered in the policies, either at the international or the national level, for the sustainable utilization of biofuels.

While the rapid expansion of palm oil cultivation in Indonesia and Malaysia over the last decades has contributed to rural development, serious negative impacts have occurred. As a response, sustainability certification schemes such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) have been established. Yet the connections of the oil palm industry with regard to biofuels are complex, and the capacity of certification to truly reduce social and environmental impacts remains questioned. The aim of the chapter is to assess how oil palm production affects the local environment and human well-being, so as to contribute to the ongoing debate regarding the potential role of palm oil biofuel to clean energy provision and local development. We first provide an in-depth literature review about the impacts of oil palm cultivation and palm oil biodiesel production/use for ecosystem services, biodiversity, and human well-being. We then draw on empirical data from RSPO stakeholders regarding their perceptions about the extent/severity of those impacts and the potential of the industry to mitigate them. Our study shows how palm oil biodiesel production/use impacts biodiversity and several ecosystem services in Malaysia and Indonesia, which in turn can compromise the well-being of the local communities that rely upon them. Findings suggest that, far from being homogeneous, RSPO’s stakeholders’ perceptions are very divergent, particularly regarding the industry’s impact on climate and biodiversity. Reconciling these different perceptions is the first step for coming up with mutually acceptable standards and will be the great bet for certification schemes in the future.

Traditionally, the command and control approach has dominated the realm of environmental regulations. In a nutshell, the government is supposed to set a standard by obtaining objective scientific information and conducting a rational assessment of risks and benefits, and to enforce it by conventional stick and carrot mechanisms such as monitoring and penalty. In reality, however, this model has turned out to be not as effective as it was supposed to be. First of all, the cost of monitoring all regulated activities turns out to be too large for the public to pay for. While there have been efforts to improve monitoring devices, only a few who tries to make a large sum of short-term profit by evading regulations can do an enormous harm to the environment. Secondly, the command and control approach encouraged distrust among stakeholders. Supervising agencies and environmental groups are always being skeptical about what the industry does. Meanwhile, the industry becomes frustrated with the regulatory pressures and tried to manipulate through lobbing. In the end, rule-making processes become acrimonious, and the main goal of protecting the public through regulation is forgotten in the battle.

One of the core questions for sustainability science is investigating how the dynamic interactions between nature and society can be better incorporated into emerging models and conceptualizations that integrate the Earth system, social system, and human system (Kates et al. 2001; Komiyama and Takeuchi 2006). Since these interactions, by their nature, relate to various stakeholders and players from many different fields, the problem-solving process requires the collaboration and partnership of these players. Many efforts have been made to structure diverse and fragmented knowledge for facilitating their collaboration (Choucri et al. 2007; Kumazawa et al. 2009).

Biofuels have been identified as having diverse environmental, social, and economic impacts, as discussed in Chap. 2. For this reason, the use of biofuels to realize a sustainable society requires study that takes into account the respective characteristics of biofuel deployment on a global, regional, national, and local scale. In this chapter, we examine deployment strategies for sustainable biofuels on a global scale by surveying the current and future issues that need to be considered. These issues include environmental impacts starting with the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from biofuels and including other issues such as energy security, food security, rural development, agriculture and industrial policy, trade, and north-south issues. We then examine ways that biofuel deployment strategies can address these issues to realize a sustainable society.

This chapter explores the potential for a regional perspective on biofuels in Asia. In the late 2000s, there were high expectations in many Asian countries that biofuels could be produced and consumed on a large scale, and enhance energy security, provide jobs, and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. There were also high expectations of significant biofuel trade, particularly of exports from Southeast Asia to the EU and Japan. Several Asian countries have biofuel blending mandates and produce modest quantities of biofuels. Current levels of biofuel use in Asian countries may be feasible, but it is likely to be difficult for biofuels to account for a large share of transport fuel use. Overall, this chapter concludes that large-scale increases in production are probably not realistic without large-scale diversion of land from other uses such as food production, and without further pressure on the environment and other resources necessary for production, particularly water. It is not always clear where large amounts of land might be available, so there is no clear source of large-scale sustainable biofuel exports. Encouragement of smaller scale production tailored to local conditions as a way to promote rural development, poverty reduction, and management of certain kinds of waste may be more realistic. However, without large economies of scale, it will be difficult to reduce costs. In addition, there are various other challenges to the promotion of small-scale biofuels such as capacity of farmers, availability and cost of land, water, labor, and other inputs, and availability of markets for final outputs. If the main goal is to increase rural employment rather than energy security or GHG emissions reduction, then there may be other ways to accomplish this besides biofuels. Sustainability standards and certification systems are one possible way to encourage the development of biofuels in a positive direction. However, while they may enable sustainable incremental production, they cannot create new land for biofuels, and if they are to be effective, they should restrain the availability of new land by preventing excessive land use change from forests or food crops.

The introduction and diffusion of biofuel industry have been promoted in many developed countries including Japan, which has established concrete mandates with numerical targets for both bioethanol and biodiesel. This chapter quantitatively assesses various environmental impacts by expanding biofuel production and ethanol usage and analyzes the interlinkages among different impacts under several options for introducing biofuel in Japan. The author uses life-cycle carbon footprint (LCCO₂), water footprint (WF), and ecological footprint (EF) to measure sustainability, by considering feedstock types, changes in land use, imports, and environmental conditions as well as domestic supply capacity and national mandates. Based on the analysis, policy implications of moving toward sustainable biofuel are briefly discussed.