European biotech industry sets the record straight on biofuels and outlines contribution of biotech to a low-carbon society
At a press briefing held at World Biofuels Markets in Brussels, the biotech industry set the record straight on biofuels and showed how biotechnology can contribute to a low-carbon society by helping to deliver sustainable, secure and competitive energy.
"To move towards a future with the needed greenhouse gas (GHG) savings and energy security, every solution is important. Biofuels contribute in realizing these solutions, but it is important that the emerging biofuels sector be built on sound sustainability principles" said Kirsten Birkegaard Staer, Chair of EuropaBio's Biofuels Task Force.
EuropaBio's pillars of sustainability include:
1) The development of a credible and robust certification scheme on an EU or global basis to guarantee that biofuels are produced in an environmentally sustainable way.
2) The development of sustainability criteria for the biomass used for biofuel production as well as for all (energy) applications
3) The insistence that the use of biomass for fuel purposes should not jeopardize European and third countries' ability to secure its people's food supply, nor should it prevent protecting forests, preventing soil degradation and keeping a good ecological status of waters.
4) The support of a threshold value for greenhouse gas (GHG) savings, restrictions on land use to avoid major reduction in carbon stocks and biodiversity loss from land use change.
It is the opinion of EuropaBio that the GHG savings threshold should be set at a level which would allow current technologies and production processes to be used as it is important that a market for biofuel is established as soon as possible in order to attract the necessary investments and to establish the infrastructure (production and logistics) in Europe. At the same time EuropaBio would like to underline the importance of keeping encouraging technological development for increasingly eco-friendly biofuels. As an important measure in order to stimulate the transition towards biofuels with higher GHG savings EuropaBio proposes a "stepwise approach" starting with a relatively low GHG savings threshold and increasing in time, or a system where a moderate threshold could be set as basis, coupled with an "incentivisation system" rewarding additional GHG savings.
"EuropaBio strongly supports the development of sustainability criteria for biofuels," said Johan Vanhemelrijck, Secretary General of EuropaBio. "However, it is very important that sustainability criteria are technology-neutral, transparent, and based on scientific evidence and on clear definitions."
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