Our Founder & CEO, Peter Schniering, was invited by the Global Biofuels Alliance to a high-level roundtable on Setting up Common Definition for Sustainable Biofuels to Accelerate Biofuels Adoption alongside Jessica Olson (Topsoe), William Hohenstein (US Department of Agriculture OIG), Vibha Dhawan (TERI – The Energy and Resources Institute), Lais Garcia (Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), and other great speakers. The discussion focused on defining and prioritizing effective sustainability metrics for biofuels, ensuring flexible and fair sustainability standards for diverse biofuels, and developing sustainable biofuel definitions.
Biofuels can be produced from many feedstocks and through various pathways, with a range of emissions savings and costs. To avoid market distortions, there needs to be a minimum agreed-upon standard of sustainability that is adhered to globally, based on lifecycle GHG emissions, and indirect effects such as land use change. The key takeaways from the discussions included:
✅ A science-based, sober approach is key. Production pathways are complex and climate integrity of the respective procedure should be an important guiding principle.
✅ The details are complex. This comprises both the production pathways – and climate effects – of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation biofuels, as well as the predicted availability and growth in fuel availability.
✅ The ultimate goal should be an internationally recognized and harmonized sustainability scheme – but regionally differing opportunities on biofuels, national political targets and uncertainty make this an uphill challenge.
