Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels

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Bioenergy > Sustainability standards > Initiatives > Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB)

Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels

Secretariat webpage
Steering Board

Sustainability Criteria:
RSB principles & criteria (Version 0.0) August 2008
Official Brochure

Working groups
GHG - Greenhouse gas lifecycle efficiency analysis
ENV - Environmental impacts
SOC - Social impacts
IMP - Implementation


Current debates:
Land Use and GHG- GHG emissions from indirect land use changes
Soil Management
Water Management
Air quality
Biodiversity Offsets.

Documents:
-RSB launch press release
-RSB Flyer (pdf)
-RSB Intro to Feedback Mechanisms
-Commenting on RSB Drafts Using the BioenergyWiki (PDF File)
-RSB Draft Principles - June 5, 2007 (PDF File)

The Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB) is a key multi-stakeholder initiative to develop standards for the sustainability of biofuels. The Roundtable is an initiative of the Swiss EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) Energy Center. Our hope is to create a tool that consumers, policy-makers, companies, banks, and other actors can use to ensure that biofuels deliver on their promise of sustainability. Since August 2008, the first draft Principles and Criteria (version 0) is available (also in pdf). Consultation and discussions on this version (on the way to version 1) will be open through February 2009. To comment on the version 0, please use the discussion pages or send us an email (rsbatepfl.ch). We look forward to receiving your opinion and recommendations!

Contents

Latest news and announcement

16 December 2008

  • View the report, background documents and presentations of the Workshop on biofuels, deforestation and land-use change, held in São Paulo on the 20th and 21st of November 2008. Presentations included LU case studies from Central and South America, Asia and West Africa, mapping and monitoring of sugarcane expansion in Brazil, and the state-of-the art in terms of LUC modelling.
  • The new brochure of the Version Zero (principles and criteria for sustainable biofuels)can be downloaded here!


  • You can meet the Roundtable team at the following conferences (please contact us for meeting on site):

Current debates and burning issues

Come and share your views on the following topics:

Overview

Sponsor
Swiss École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne


Secretariat


Steering board


Working Groups
GHG ENV SOC IMP
Greenhouse gas lifecycle efficiency analysis Environmental impacts Social impacts Implementation

Standards

According to the organizers of the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels, this initiative aims to develop standards that are:

  • Simple - "The standards should be accessible by small producers, inexpensive to measure, and easy to explain."[1]
  • Generic - "The standards should be applicable to any crop in any country, and allow comparisons across crops and production systems."[1]
  • Adaptable - "The standards should be easy to revise to take into account new technologies and their impacts on relative performance of different biofuels."[1]
  • Efficient - EPFL aims "to incorporate other standards and certifications to eliminate duplicative reporting and reduce inspection burdens on producers and processors.[1]

In line with its initial commitment that "All standards development work will be done in an open and transparent way, with ample comment periods", the RSB is now an associate member of the ISEAL, and will keep implementing the ISEAL code of good practice."[1]

Timeline

  • After releasing the version 0.0 in August 2008, the RSB aims to coordinate an international dialog in conjunction with non-governmental organizations, companies, governments and inter-governmental groups from all over the world through the Wiki platform, emails, virtual meetings and regional stakeholders meetings. The version 1.0 should be released through March 2009.

History

  • Click here to view all the background documents and reports from the RSB discussions between april 2007 and august 2008.
  • Click here to see the report and presentations of the 1st RSB stakeholder meeting (28th of November, 2006)!

Events

Publications

Contacts

  • Opal Charlotte: RSB Coordinator; e-mail:charlotte.opal"at"epfl.ch
  • Annie Sugrue: Social Impacts Working Group Coordinator; e-mail: annie.sugrue"at"epfl.ch
  • Maryline Guiramand: Implementation Working Group Coordinator; e-mail: maryline.guiramand"at"epfl.ch
  • Sébastien Haye: ENV Working Group Coordinator; e-mail:sebastien.haye"at"epfl.ch
  • Georgios Sarantakos: GHG Working Group Coordinator; e-mail:georgios.sarantakos"at"epfl.ch

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 [1]


                        Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels edit
RSB sustainability criteria: "Version Zero" draft of standards
RSB working groups: Greenhouse Gases (GHG WG) Environment (ENV WG) | Implementation (IMP WG)
Social Impacts (SOC WG)
RSB launch press release | RSB Intro to Feedback Mechanisms | Commenting on RSB Drafts Using the BioenergyWiki (PDF)
RSB outreach in the Americas | RSB Current Debate on Land Use
Recent changes to BioenergyWiki related to the RSB
Sustainability standards edit
Organizations/Initiatives: Better Sugarcane Initiative | Forest Stewardship Council | Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels | Responsible Commodities Initiative | EU: GAVE | LowCVP

Policy proposals: Green Biofuels Index
Key terms: Ecological Footprint | Life-cycle analysis | Eco-labelling


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