Elsevier

Energy Policy

Volume 39, Issue 10, October 2011, Pages 5763-5769
Energy Policy

Assessing biofuels: Aiming for sustainable development or complying with the market?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2011.03.054Get rights and content

Abstract

The growing interest in biofuels has led to increasing concern about their wider implications, particularly if grown for transport use in large scale. Such concerns include environmental, social and economic issues. To counterbalance the possible negative effects, a series of measures are being put in place to help their sustainability. Nevertheless, considering the different meanings of sustainability in different parts of the world and the need to expand productive rural activities, the differences between trying to assure a commodity and the benefits or impacts at local level raise the questions between the aims of sustainability and the need to comply with a market. The ideal situation would be to reconcile both aspects, which in practise represent a major challenge for governments and industry. This paper provides an overview on the sustainability assessment of biofuels to consider a possible way forward.

Highlights

► Multi-interactions in biomass production for bioenergy are a new paradigm to develop policies. ► Certification and verification schemes are limited to assess broader sustainability issues. ► Improved agricultural and forestry systems for biomass use will boost policies and investment.

Introduction

Since the 1970s the use of biofuels (defined as liquid or gaseous fuel for transport produced from biomass; EC, 2003) has attracted attention for a number of reasons, including concerns about oil dependency, production of “renewable” non-fossil fuels, increasing demand for local rural activities. Additionally, environmental concerns have been raised along with concerns with adherence to international agreements to reduce green house gases (GHG) and dependency on oil fuels (Feehan and Petersen, 2004) The relatively small share of transport fuels currently being provided by biofuels has prompted EU-member states to undertake a raft of initiatives aimed at significantly increasing the proportion in biofuel use in transport. This expansion of biofuel use has, in turn, raised awareness of their potential environmental and social impacts of across all stages in the supply and use chains.

There are also other arguments in favour of the use of biomass in this way, such as security of energy supply, diversification of energy sources, low-carbon emission, an alternative market for agricultural products and rehabilitation of degraded lands. Over the last years several activities have emerged for reviewing the environmental and social impacts of cultivation and production of biofuels, as well as activities regarding certification and sustainability standards (see for instance JEC, 2010, RSB, 2010). However, the current debate focuses on the possible negative social and environmental implications, especially as regards land competition, the questionable reduction of emissions and “the fuel versus food” debate (Diaz-Chavez and Woods, 2008, Lynd et al., 2011).

This paper examines the differences between assessing sustainability in biofuels production in terms of achieving or moving towards sustainable development goals in production areas and providing certification that focuses on market compliance.

Section snippets

Sustainability assessment

Since the original definition of sustainable development in the Brundtland report (WCED, 1987), where the idea was to reconciliate environmental protection and economic development (Dresner, 2002), the concept has undergone changes. Although this concept is widely accepted, worldwide differences in meaning and views still exist. Sustainable development and sustainability are sometimes used interchangeably to refer to maintenance of the resources or a system over time.

Traditionally, the concept

How to assess sustainability in practise and whose sustainability? A framework proposal

Since there are different definitions of sustainability, there are different methods to assess sustainability. According to Dalal-Clayton and Bass (2002), the purpose of measuring and analysing sustainability is to answer essential questions related to how healthy is the ecosystem; how are human activities affecting that particular ecosystem; how is life quality for the population (considering their future generations); is there an equity well-being and the interlinks between these question

Sustainability considerations for production and use of biofuels

A number of issues need to be considered to ensure both the sustainable production and use of biomass when oriented towards energy needs (power and transport) and at the same time reduces GHG emissions. Amongst these are environmental and social concerns (Fig. 1), including the area of land required for energy crops production, which include the effects that the large-scale cultivation of energy crops and use of residues may have on biodiversity, soils, hydrology and landscape (Diaz-Chavez and

Certification schemes and standards. Only a market overview?

Since the enforcement of the 2003 EU Directive on Biofuels and the new Renewables Energy Directive (EC, 2009) there has been a growing concern over the availability of resources such as water and land, and the increasing demand for energy crops to produce them. There has also been a concern about the increasing demand for biofuels imports from developing countries. This increment has been observed mainly from sugarcane, soy, palm oil, rape seed, wood products and other biofuel feedstock (

Is there a way forward?

Certification and verification schemes might contribute to paving the way towards the sustainable production of feedstocks and their transformation to biofuels. Nevertheless, they are limited in terms of what broader sustainability issues can be accounted for especially for the environment and the local population.

As seen in the previous section the majority of the verification systems respond to commercial and legal regulations but cannot assess deeper details that are related to each

References (54)

  • I. Lewandowski et al.

    Steps towards the development of a certification system for sustainable bio-energy trade

    Biomass and Bioenergy

    (2006)
  • V.E. Udo et al.

    Bridging the gaps for global sustainable development: a quantitative analysis

    Journal of Environmental Management

    (2009)
  • J.M. Amezaga et al.

    Assessing the Sustainability of Bioenergy Projects in Developing Countries: A framework for policy evaluation

    (2010)
  • M. Assad

    The Labour Law in Brazil and its application in the sugar and alcohol sector

  • S. Bell et al.

    Sustainability Indicators: Measuring the Immeasurable,

    (1999)
  • Dalal-Clayton, B., Bass, S. (Eds.), 2002. Sustainable Development Strategies: A Resource Book. Organisation for...
  • Diaz-Chavez, R., 2003. Sustainable Development Indicators for Peri-Urban Areas. A Case Study of Mexico City. Ph.D....
  • R. Diaz-Chavez

    Measuring sustainability in peri-urban areas: case study of Mexico city

  • Diaz-Chavez, R., 2006b. Sustainability Assessment Workshop Bioethanol for Sustainable Transport (BEST). FP6 EU Funded...
  • Diaz-Chavez, R., Woods, J., 2008. Sustainability assessment of biofuels in practice. In: Proceedings of the 5th...
  • Diaz-Chavez, R., Rosillo-Calle, F., 2009. Biofuels for transport—sustainability and certification. Where Are We Now and...
  • Diaz-Chavez, R., 2010a. Sustainability analysis of biofuels production and use. The BEST Project Approach. Bioethanol...
  • Diaz-Chavez, R., 2010b. Good Practice Guidelines to Project Implementers. COMPETE....
  • S. Dresner

    The Principles of Sustainability

    (2002)
  • EC, 2001. Directive 2001/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 June 2001 on the Assessment of the...
  • EC, 2003. Directive 2003/30/EC of the European Parliament and the Council on the promotion of the use of biofuels or...
  • EC, 2009. DIRECTIVE 2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the Promotion of the...
  • ECCM, 2006. Environmental Standards for Biofuels. A Report Commissioned by the LowCVP. The Edinburgh Centre for Carbon...
  • Ecofys, 2006. Sustainability Reporting within the RTFO—Framework Report. Commissioned by the UK Department of...
  • EEDA, 2006. Smart Productivity Securing Sustainable Development in the English Regions. East of England Development...
  • ETSF, 2006. Criteria for sustainable biomass production. Project Group Sustainable Biomass Production. Final Report....
  • Farell, A.E., Sperling, D., 2007a. A Low-Carbon Fuel Standard for California—Part 1: Technical Analysis, Regents of the...
  • Farell, A.E., Sperling, D., 2007b. A Low-Carbon Fuel Standard for California—Part 2: Policy Analysis, Regents of the...
  • Ferraz, M., 2007. O cerrado e a cana: convivência possível?. Ciência Hoje On-line, 29...
  • Feehan, Jane, Jan-Erik, Petersen, 2004. A framework for evaluating the environmental impact of biofuel use. In:...
  • Fehrenbach, H., Giegrich, J., GÄartner, S., Reinhardt, G., Rettenmaier, N., 2007. Greenhouse gas Balances for the...
  • GBEP, 2010. Task Force on Sustainability. Global Bioenergy Partnership....
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text