13. Key Strategies for Policymakers

Biofuels are carbon neutral at the usage stage and, because they are renewable, can be studied as a means of addressing global warming. However, there are many items that need to be considered including changes in land use, encompassing forest conservation, as well as impacts on air, water, and soil quality and impacts on water resources, ecosystems, and biodiversity. It is also important to assess the indirect impact on land use. For these reasons, biofuels have been studied by the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) of International Council for Science (ICS) as a worldwide body and by the USA and other countries (SCOPE 2008; UDAID 2009; USEPA 2011), in addition to existing study by the United Nations organizations cited later in this chapter. In order to assess these items appropriately, it is necessary to study deployment strategies from a global perspective.

The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP 2009) reports that the GHG balance in LCA for biofuels varies widely depending on the raw materials, biofuel generation technology, and methodological assumptions. For example, bioethanol from sugarcane can reduce GHG emissions by between 70% and 140% compared with gasoline, whereas corn can reduce GHG emissions as much as 60% but may also increase them by as much as 5%. Biodiesel from palm oil can reduce GHG emissions by as much as 80%, but when palm oil is harvested by converting natural forests into plantations, it can increase GHG emissions by 870–2000% when taking into account the impact of the land use change (UNEP 2009). In other words, biofuels do not always have the effect of reducing GHG emissions when compared with fossil fuels such as gasoline and diesel oil, if we consider direct emissions from the harvesting of biofuel crops and indirect emissions from land use changes.

Furthermore, the use of fertilizers causes eutrophication of water bodies and acidification of rainwater, while decomposition of fertilizer generates nitrogen oxides that have an impact on ozone layer depletion. It has been pointed out that these impacts are insufficiently covered by LCAs and require future study (UNEP 2009).

In addition to GHG emissions, land use change can have a potentially major negative impact on biodiversity by changing living creatures’ habitats, except where wasteland is used to cultivate energy crops. Jatropha has drawn interest as a raw material crop for biofuel but is also identified as being a potentially invasive species that could disrupt ecosystems.

It is also necessary to consider the nutrient contamination of water bodies as a result of intensive agriculture. There is the additional concern that irrigation and other practices involved in harvesting biofuel crops will also increase consumption of agricultural water and, combined with extreme weather events (flooding and droughts) caused by climate change, could create issues for water resource management (UNEP 2009; World Bank a 2010).

The use and combustion of biofuels reduce localized emissions of some air pollutants such as particulate matter (PM10), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), sulfur oxide, and carbon monoxide but are also reported to increase nitrogen oxide (NOx) and aldehyde emissions. Biodiesels are reported to increase NOx emissions but reduce PM and VOC emissions compared with low-sulfur diesel oil. In many cases, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and compressed natural gas (CNG) achieve greater reductions (World Bank a 2010; Arai 2009).

Land use change from biofuel use falls into two categories: impacts that are directly caused by harvesting of biofuel crops and indirect impacts due to changes in the harvesting of other crops which are induced by expanding of biofuel crops harvesting. Both lead to the conversion of land that is needed for forestry or for agriculture to increase food production. This could constrain resources even further. While the predicted impact depends on the target that is set for biofuel use, there are studies indicating that there will not be a major increase in land conversion because of large food demand from China and India and relatively low production of biomass, although land conversion has increased in Africa and Central and South America and to a lesser extent in the USA and Australia (World Bank a 2010). Furthermore, it is thought that natural forests and grassland that are not being used for forestry will be the main target for conversion into biofuel cropping (World Bank a 2010).

It is reported that between 475 and 580 million hectares (Mha) of abandoned agricultural land could be brought back into agricultural production, but not all of these can be returned to productivity, for reasons such as water and nutrient shortages. Furthermore, some countries such as India and China prohibit the conversion of planted forests to return them to agricultural production (World Bank a 2010).

Manufacturing and use of biofuels are closely connected with food security, namely, the stable supply of food at affordable prices, which is an issue for developing countries in particular.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that 925 million people were undernourished in 2010 (FAO 2010) and maintains that food production must increase in order to accommodate future population growth. It is estimated that crop yields per unit area will continue to increase at the recent historic average of 1.5% annually to meet increased demand from population growth, but meeting increased demand for feeds to accompany increased meat consumption will not be possible. This indicates that it will also be difficult to increase the volume of biofuel crops to cope with increased demand for biofuels. While there is a bare minimum expansion of agricultural land necessary for increased food production in response to population growth, there are many estimates regarding the extent of land use changes that will result from changes in food demand and the cropland expansion that will result from increased biofuel use. These estimates vary widely due to differences in underlying assumptions and estimation methodologies (World Bank a 2010). For example, the Gallagher Report (RFA 2008) estimates that between 144 and 334 Mha of additional land will be needed by 2020, equivalent to between 10% and 24% of all cropland in use in 2008.

Food purchasing costs account for a large portion of household expenditures for low-income households, and food security becomes an issue if biofuels cause food prices to rise. In fact, biofuels were one of the factors blamed for the global food crisis of 2008. Other factors blamed included increased demand for grains and meat in emerging countries such as China and India, climate conditions including a drought in Australia, the sharp decline of the US dollar, implementation of export restrictions in food-exporting countries in order to combat domestic food price inflation, and speculative trends in international markets.

Recent reports indicate that the impact of biofuels on food prices is relatively small, both cumulatively and on a global scale. For example, it is estimated that increased global production of biofuels in the 2 years ending in June 2008 only accounted for a little over 12% of the rise in the International Monetary Fund’s food price index (World Bank a 2010).

However, looking toward the future, prices for corn will increase by 23–72% by 2020 if countries implement their biofuel deployment plans. The World Energy Outlook 2008 by the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects a scenario in which food prices are calculated to rise by 10% by 2020 if biofuel deployment is maintained at 2008 levels (World Bank a 2010).

The impact of biofuel use on the food supply and food prices must be carefully considered. The joint statement issued by the FAO’s World Summit on Food Security (FAO 2009) and the leaders statement of the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit both call for a balance between policies promoting the sustainable production and use of biofuels and food security.

The FAO points out that new agricultural investment to accompany biofuel use has the potential to create new markets and employment in agriculture, which has struggled with sharply dropping food prices over the last few decades (FAO 2008). According to the FAO, an appropriate increase in biofuel production in rural areas will improve infrastructure development and enhance access to markets. Furthermore, it will help to modernize agriculture and rural economies, improve access to modern energy, and improve indoor air pollution through the use of biofuels that are less polluting to the environment. If good practices such as no-tillage cropping and direct seeding can be employed to harvest biofuel crops, negative impacts, including carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and consumption of water resources, can be lessened. In addition, development of local production systems that combine food and energy crops correctly can reduce waste and raise the overall production efficiency.

Notably, the Cabinet of the Japanese Government approved a Biomass Nippon Strategy in December 2002, further revising it in March 2006. The strategy outlines concrete initiatives and a plan of action for encouraging the use of biomass, including biofuels, with the additional perspective of revitalizing agricultural, forestry, and fishing communities. Under the strategy, the Japanese government is implementing policies for significant deployment of biofuels (Government of Japan 2006).

The UNEP reports that global production of ethanol for transport fuel increased from 17 billion liters to 52 billion liters between 2000 and 2007, while biodiesel increased from 1 billion liters to 11 billion liters in the same period. Biofuels altogether provided 1.8% of the world’s transport fuel, with ethanol providing 5.46% of global gasoline use, while biodiesel provided just 1.5% of global diesel use (UNEP 2009). According to a joint report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the FAO, ethanol production is estimated to increase to 159 billion liters by 2019 with biodiesel production increasing to 41 billion liters, which, even considered together, will not account for a significant share of the overall consumption of transport fuel (OECD-FAO 2010). As a result, while the role of biofuels from an energy security perspective varies by country depending on national circumstances, biofuels do not play a major role from a global perspective. However, the situation could change due to uncertain factors including future policies to promote biofuels, economic circumstances such as crude oil prices, environmental standards, developments in second-generation biofuel technologies, and competition between food production and biofuel production from agricultural resources.

Global international trade in biofuels only accounts for around one-tenth of all biofuel production, but global trade in ethanol fuels is estimated to have tripled from less than 1 billion liters in 2000 to around 3 billion liters in 2007. The USA is the world’s largest ethanol-importing nation, with Brazil the largest exporting nation. More than 10% of all biodiesel production in 2007 was traded internationally, with Indonesia and Malaysia being the major biodiesel exporting nations (World Bank a 2010).

The USA and EU have targeted domestic biofuel production in consideration of their respective domestic biofuel use targets, and no countries other than Brazil currently have the production capacity to become major biofuel-exporting countries. South and Central America and Africa have gaps between their biofuel production potential and actual production and as such have the potential to become exporting countries in the future. In India, trade opportunities are restricted by high tariffs. Although OECD countries have low tariffs for biofuel imports, these countries spend heavily on subsidies to protect their domestic agricultural industries. Furthermore, it has been pointed out that regulations such as the EU’s sustainability criteria serve as barriers to trade (World Bank a 2010).

Global trade in biofuels is expected to increase in the future, due to increased demand coming from targets for biofuel use in developed countries, and the potential developing countries have to increase supply through agricultural development. Biofuel imports will also be critical to countries such as Japan that are unable to meet their domestic targets for biofuel use through domestic production alone. The OECD contends that import tariffs on biofuel ingredient crops that are aimed at protecting domestic production and import tariffs on biofuels actually serve as hidden taxes that raise the cost of using biofuels. Furthermore, opening up these markets will reduce the cost and enhance production efficiency as well as decrease dependency on fossil fuels and reduce impacts on the environment (OECD 2008). While certification schemes for biofuels bring about product differentiation based on how biofuels are manufactured and their impacts as determined by life cycle analysis, there is continuing debate about these schemes’ relevance to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules when they are used to restrict trade (UNCTAD 2008).

As to the treatment of biofuels in environmental conventions, the Convention on Biological Diversity specifies that production and use of biofuels should be sustainable from a biodiversity perspective and in particular should minimize negative impacts on the lives of indigenous and local communities. The Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity has issued a decision urging national governments to apply a precautionary approach to the introduction of modified organisms for the production of biofuels, in accordance with the Preamble to the Convention and the Cartagena Protocol (CBD/COP 10 Decision X/37 2010). The implementation framework for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change puts into practice the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) program. REDD+ issues funds and credits as economic incentives for reducing CO₂ emissions through clean development mechanism (CDM) projects or efforts by developing countries to restrict deforestation and forest degradation, in the interest of having forests as important carbon stores but also as future sources of material for biofuels. These measures form a response based on the principles prescribed by the Convention on Biological Diversity and Framework Convention on Climate Change, which place common but differentiated responsibilities among developed countries and developing countries, and are important for strengthening international systems to support the sustainable development and use of biofuels.

In any case, it has become essential to respond to north-south issues that accompany financial and technical assistance measures for developing countries and to establish appropriate trade rules in order to use biofuels sustainably at the global level.

An overview of current challenges and policy recommendations relating to the sustainable use of biofuels was introduced in previous sections. Clearly, it is necessary to approach the sustainable use of biofuels in a way that takes into account environmental conservation issues, food security, community development, energy security, trade, and the “north-south divide.” We show that the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and other organizations are issuing policy recommendations that meet these needs. Here, we focus on concrete policy methods by extracting strategy tools from such recommendations. These proposed policy methods can be broadly divided into eight categories outlined below. These are closely related to each other. For example, where standards, indicators, and certification systems are applied, sustainable land use is promoted by the standards and methods if they are set appropriately. From an international perspective, some of the more important strategies and initiatives are development of standards and indicators, the application of certification systems, international market liberalization, and technology transfer to developing countries.

The UN-Energy program, UNEP, and United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS) have all recommended sustainability standards, indicators, and certification systems as effective tools in strategies to promote sustainable biofuel utilization at an international level. The Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP) is also examining their introduction. Because such measures have already been partially implemented and proven to some extent in international consensus and practice, in ISO 14001 and other fields like forestry, they are now the center of attention and are being studied in light of the latest trends.

Like the certification system of the ISO 14001: environmental management standard, standards, indicators, and certification systems are designed to promote measures that counter adverse environmental impacts by defining the standards and indicators necessary to achieve specified targets of environmental conservation. Products and enterprises that meet those requirements can then be awarded certification. Standards define the concept of sustainability, while indicators serve as quantitative, or in some cases qualitative, criteria for measuring and assessing compatibility with the standard. Standards and indicators can be used independently to define policy goals or as part of a certification system to define specific certification criteria that differ from existing standards and indicators.

A certification system that covers all stages from production through processing and distribution is referred to as “chain of custody certification” or “COC certification.” One example of such a chain is the processing of ethanol or vegetable oil from a certified farm, followed by fermentation/extraction and proper delivery to consumers. Since biofuels are liquids, the risk exists that they may become mixed up or confused in the process of distribution, either with other certified fuels or with an uncertified fuel. For this reason, measures such as those below have been introduced for tracking biofuels through the certified product supply chain.

These kinds of reference standards and indicators and certification systems are already utilized in the fields of forestry and marine products. Good examples are the certification system of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the system implemented by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). (See the FSC and MSC websites.)

The features of standards and indicators and certification systems based on them are outlined below (UNCTAD 2008; UNEP 2009; Scarlat 2011).

On the other hand, there are limitations and problems with standards, indicators, and certification systems, such as the following:

Addressing indirect land use change would require implementing certification over the whole planet, in order to get a complete picture of the system. However, since this is totally unrealistic, standards, indicators, and certification systems cannot be very effective in dealing with indirect land use change. Devices such as the iLUC factor (indirect land use change factor) for specific products, i.e., the evaluation based on a global-scale life cycle for each consuming country/region and product/production process, are necessary, but data usability is still a problem.

As opposed to creating new standards for biofuel crop production, especially for biofuels, the “meta-standard approach” makes use of existing standards for sustainable agriculture and forestry. The use of existing standards offers numerous benefits: assured reliability, easier acceptability to buyers, quick implementation, greater cost effectiveness, less confusion between different standards, and promotion of convergence (Committee on the Sustainability Criteria regarding Introduction of Biofuels 2009).

More specifically, there is no clear consensus about whether certification systems developed by NGOs or other private organizations fall under WTO rules or whether they should be regarded merely as marketing strategies. Although certification serves to differentiate products based on their methods of production and their LCA-determined impacts, any differentiation based on process and production methods (PPM) may be in violation of WTO agreements. Also, there is still some debate about whether certified biofuels can be justified as exceptions to the rules (under Article 20 of GATT) as measures necessary to protect human, animal, and plant life and health or measures to conserve limited natural resources. And doubts remain about the differentiation of products on the basis that they meet a broad range of objectives such as workers’ rights and food security or on the basis of their production process. Note that no study appears to have been done on certification systems in relation to government support schemes or subsidies in light of international trade agreements (UNCTAD 2008).

For example, under the EU Renewable Energy Directive, the standard relating to biodiesel fuels stipulates that they should not be cultivated on converted peat lands and that they should reduce CO₂ emissions by at least 50% relative to conventional fuels on a life cycle basis. The directive recommends the use of a voluntary certification system to prove these requirements. However, the Indonesian government and US soybean producers have expressed fears that this standard violates WTO rules relating to PPM (Jakarta Globe 2010, GlobalSubsidies 2011 HP).

At the same time, some countries give “favored nation” treatment to particular international trading partners. For example, under a preferential import system for ethanol fuels in the USA, ethanol imports from Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA) countries are exempt from import duties, although there is an upper limit on import volume. In 2006 these countries accounted for 25% of all imports of ethanol for fuel use, but until 2003 they accounted for 100% of the total import volume (Uchida 2007).

As the OECD has pointed out, eliminating this kind of trade barrier through an international consensus on WTO rules relating to certification systems can lead to a liberalization of international markets that gives rise to more efficient global biofuel production.

According to the UNEP, there are at least 29 sustainable biomass or biofuel-related initiatives to establish standards, indicators, or certification systems presently being conducted by various national governments, NGOs, worldwide organizations, and other bodies (UNEP 2009). As of January 2011, the FAO’s Bioenergy and Food Security Criteria and Indicators Project (BEFSCI) was dealing with 17 initiatives, reviewing outlines of regulatory frameworks for the EU and other regions (5 cases), voluntary standard and certification schemes (10 cases), and scorecards (2 cases), with most of these cases being related to biofuels.

There are currently many activities in progress all over the world, but here, in accordance with the FAO classification, we will look at an outline of the main initiatives relating to voluntary standards, indicators, certification systems, and regulatory frameworks (See Tables 13.1 and 13.2).

GBEP has recently agreed on 24 indicators in the three fields but found that the initial indicators they proposed to gage indirect impacts on land utilization due to cultivation of bioenergy plants and indirect impacts relating to the price of agricultural products require further study. Also, indicators do not serve to express the direction and threshold values of measures and standards but to express the state of progress toward sustainable development in individual countries (GBEP 2011).

RSB is an organization led by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, consisting of more than 720 diverse stakeholder organizations, including biofuel users, producers, policymakers, companies, and financial institutions. The body is currently engaged in an initiative aimed at creating tools to help these stakeholders make judgments about sustainability. It recently released version 2 of its RSB Guidelines, which outline principles and standards for global-scale sustainable biofuel production, and in March 2011 launched a certification system connected to these guidelines. This system conforms with regulations on biofuel requirements set by the government of Germany, which aims at expanding the use of biodiesel and will become an important importer in the future, as well as biofuel regulations based on the EU directive.

A survey of initiatives relating to specific biofuel crops reveals that there are current international initiatives by bodies connected with the oil palm, soybean, and sugarcane industries.

Palm oil, obtained from the fruits of oil palms, is one of the most abundant vegetable oils in the world, with global production estimated at approximately 46 million tons (2010 estimate, Yushi (Oils and Fats) 2011). In addition to its use in food products such as cooking oil, margarine, and shortening, it is used as a raw material for soap and increasingly for the production of biodiesel fuel. The main producers of palm oil are Indonesia and Malaysia. Although the proportion of their palm oil output that is used as a raw material for biofuels is relatively small, demand for food products is growing, and the conversion of forests and peat lands to plantations has become a problem. In view of this, in 2003 the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was formed to promote sustainable methods of oil palm cultivation and palm oil production. RSPO members include oil palm growers, palm oil processors and traders, consumer good manufacturers, retailers, banks and investors, and NGOs. Currently, there are more than 400 members and 110 supporting members.

RSPO has set forth eight principles and 39 criteria to promote sustainable production and consumption. For example, its environmental standards and indicators stipulate that after 2005 new plantations must not be converted from virgin forest or areas of high conservation value and that levels of pollution and waste products must be reduced. To prove that these standards and indicators are strictly observed, a certification system was introduced for plantations and extraction plants, and a COC certification system was introduced for the supply chain. For regular certification, the certifying body visits the plantation or plant to conduct an auditing, during which they examine documentation and the site/facilities and interview relevant parties. A summary of the auditing report is then posted on the Internet. For COC certification, in addition to an identity preserved (IP) system that allows the use of palm oil produced by certified facilities, segregation (SG) and mass balance (MB) systems were also adopted. Book and Claim (BC) was also introduced for credit trading. Also, to promote awareness among consumers, RSPO developed a trademark, which is expected to come into use in 2011. As of January 2011, there were 81 certified processing plants and a total of approximately 760,000 ha of certified plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia, and 3.8 million tons of palm oil has so far been certified (Bangan 2011). Nonetheless, RSPO still faces significant problems. Standards and indicators relating to greenhouse gases are still only under consideration, and the demand for certified palm oil is low relative to the supply.

Soybeans account for approximately 29% of the total worldwide production of vegetable oil, second only to palm oil. Like the palm oil industry, in 2006 the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) was founded, with the aim of promoting the responsible production and use of soybeans, through the participation of stakeholders and the application of international standards. The membership of RTRS is made up of growers, the soybean oil industry, traders, financial institutions, and NGOs, while individuals and governments can participate as observers. As of 2009 the total membership was approximately 110 organizations, of which half were producers. In May 2009, principles and standards for field testing were approved by the general assembly, and a pilot project was launched. Then in 2010 standards developed from five principles were adopted at the general assembly (RTRS 2010). Work is also in progress on preparing the implementation of a certification system, under a similar framework to that of the palm oil industry, and a certification trading platform corresponding to palm oil’s book and trade feature was expected to go into effect in April 2011. Note that it has been agreed that soybean oil certified by the RTRS in cooperation with the EU can be considered as a biofuel that complies with the requirements of the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED), provided that it satisfies specific requirements.

Bonsucro is an international nonprofit organization that aims at social, environmental, and economic sustainability of sugarcane-related activities by promoting the development and use of global standards. The membership is similar to those of the other crops mentioned, e.g., sugar producers, NGOs, and other stakeholders. In March 2011, Bonsucro introduced a certification system. It formulated Bonsucro’s production standards and developed a set of indicators based on five principles, such as strict compliance with applicable laws. The requirement for certification is 100% compliance with core indicators and 80% compliance with other indicators (Bonsucro 2011). The body has also developed a supply chain certification scheme, making use of MB-based methods. The first supplies of certified sugar are expected to be available around April 2011. Provisions have also been made for compliance with the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED) and Fuel Quality Directive by including two corresponding sections in the standards. Compliance with these sections will be considered to represent compliance with the EU directives.

In USA, life cycle-based standards relating to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions have been adopted for biofuels used for transportation equipment. In August 2005, the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which mandates the use of biofuels for powering automobiles, was incorporated into the 2005 Energy Policy Law. The standard stipulated the use of a total of 4 billion gallons (approx. 15 million kL) of biofuels by 2006, with a steady increase in subsequent years up to a total of 7.5 billion gallons (approx. 28 million kL) by 2012. Then in December 2007 the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 was introduced, which unveiled medium-term policy guidelines on improving energy efficiency and expanding the production of renewable energy. By upgrading the RFS (to RFS-2), the act set even more ambitious requirements for biofuel production: 9 billion gallons per year by 2008, increasing in stages to 36 billion gallons by 2022. It also stipulated that new biofuels derived from raw materials other than corn must account for at least 21 billion gallons of the 36 billion gallon target for 2022. Furthermore, biofuels must account for at least 20% of all fuel for transport by 2020. Under this RFS program, biofuels are classified into four types, with targets set for the quantity of each type used. These biofuels must comply with a standard for cutting greenhouse gas emissions relative to fossil fuels. The US Environmental Protection Agency is also assessing other environmental impacts of RFS-2. For example, the production and use of regular ethanol produced from corn must generate at least 20% less greenhouse gas emissions than regular gasoline, based on LCA, taking into account major indirect impacts such as land use change (Hill 2011).

In the EU, the Renewable Energy Directive (2009/28/EC) requires that by 2020, renewable energy must account for at least 20% of the total final energy consumption in the EU. Targets for biofuel adoption for transport fuel are 5.75% by 2010 and 10% by 2020. The biofuel sustainability standard for this purpose features greenhouse gas reduction targets relative to fossil fuels, based on LCA (min. 35%), environmental impacts (e.g., not permitting raw materials for biofuels from areas of high biodiversity or high carbon storage capacity), and social impacts. As for indirect impacts, a report by the EC concludes that if the share of first-generation biofuels derived from agricultural crops is held to less than 5.6%, and second-generation biofuels are used for the remainder, then biofuels can be very useful in cutting CO₂ emissions, even when additional emissions due to indirect land use change are taken into account (EC 2010).

In addition, in order to verify that biofuels are complying with the above standards, voluntary certification systems are to be used.

Some individual countries, including the UK and Germany, have also formulated their own standards on biofuels in line with EU regulations. In Japan, a report from a workshop on biofuels sustainability (“Towards the formulation of a Japanese standard for biofuel sustainability”) issued in 2009 indicated that the effectiveness of greenhouse gas emission reductions based on LCA, land use change, and the stability of supplies of biofuel crops that compete with food for crops are to be studied, as elements of standards and indicators, taking into consideration systems and methods for their operation.

As presented above, standard indicators are divided broadly into five fields: environmental, economic, social, energy, and factors relating to the monitoring of implementation status. The factor to which most attention is paid is greenhouse gas emissions in the environment. For this, quantitative standards (e.g., 35% reduction by the EU and 50% reduction by RSB) are often formulated, with reference to regular fossil fuels, based on LCA. Land use change is also considered in association with greenhouse gases; in the case of GBEP, for example, indicators will be studied further and formulated in the future that account for the indirect impacts of land use change. Other environment-related standards and indicators are generally formulated dealing with soil, water quality and quantity, air, waste, and biodiversity. Standards for specific crops also prescribe the implementation of environmental assessments before development, the integration of pest management, and the use of persistent agricultural chemicals.

Economic standards define productivity assurance, long-term economic viability, and the implementation of best practices. GBEP has a standard related to energy security such as net energy balance, energy diversity, and flexibility of the use of bioenergy, which Japan also emphasizes.

In the field of social standards, GBEP and RSB place importance on worldwide impacts, such as the assurance of food security and community development. At the same time, standards for specific products are concerned with workers’ rights and health, land rights, regulatory compliance, and participation in stakeholder evaluations.

Implementation standards are usually concerned with the implementation status monitoring and the assurance of transparency by means such as information disclosure.

Note that EU and US standards and indicators are mainly concerned with CO₂ emissions and associated land use change. As for other standards, the EC and EPA have created separate reports for submission to their national assemblies.

In the case of Bonsucro, it incorporated its COC certification requirements into standards and indicators, but other initiatives set separate regulations for its certification system.