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 1.0) November 2009
Official Brochure

Working groups (1st phase)
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. The goal of the RSB is to create and implement a certification system based on these standards to ensure that biofuels deliver on their promise of sustainability. After a six month public consultation on "Version Zero", Version 1 of the "international standard for better biofuel production and processing[1]" was approved in December of 2009 by the RSB board for pilot testing. Version One will be further improved and refined into "Version 2.0", to be released in November 2010.

Contents

Announcements

  • New Public Consultation! The RSB will open a public consultation on the revised version of the Principles & Criteria, Indicators, Guidance and other related documents. Consultation will start on the 6th of September 2010 (duration: 1 month). More info available soon!
  • Read the new Introduction to the RSB Certification Systems (PDF) for detailed information on the certification system.

Overview of standards

According to the organizers of the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels, this initiative aims to develop standards that are:Source: RSB Flyer (PDF file)

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

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."

Debates and burning issues

  • The criterion on greenhouse gases “currently requires a significant reduction of GHG emissions over the lifecycle of biofuels compared to a fossil fuel reference”. Two studies are currently being implemented to determine the GHG' emissions resulting from the production and use of biofuels and the level that will be considered sustainable. There will be an assessment of the measures and costs associated with reductions of greenhouse gases at 10%, 40% and 70% reduction levels in order to choose a minimum threshold for the standard. (Source: Way forward on Principle 3 (GHG emissions) (PDF).)
  • The indirect land use changes which occur as a result of biofuel crops is a prominent issue for calculating GHG emissions. The RSB understands the importance of this issue and is looking at commissioning or designing a study, as well as continuing to work with other NGO’s and governments to understand and include ILUC’s in the standard.

See the timeline on this page for more information on plans by the RSB Expert Groups on Greenhouse Gases and Indirect Impacts.

Timeline

  • GHG measures: The timeline shall be as follows:
    • By 1 December 2009 the GHG expert group shall review the EMPA methodology and will report back to the RSB secretariat any objections based on scientific grounds.
    • By 1 December 2009 Study 1 will begin and will be completed within 18 weeks (end of March 2010). *Study 2 will build on the results obtained in Study 1. Study 2 shall be completed by 1 May 2010.
    • The GHG expert group will be consulted throughout the course of the Studies.
    • By 15 May 2010, the results of the studies will be submitted to the Steering Board and discussed in a teleconference call. In addition, Steering Board members may distribute the results to their Chambers for feedback.
    • The Steering Board shall set a minimum GHG emission reduction threshold during the June 2010 Steering Board in--‐person meeting.

Information from the Way forward on Principle 3 (GHG emissions) (PDF).


  • Indirect impacts: Proposed Milestones and Deadlines:
    • December 2009 – Create Expert Group on Indirect Impacts
    • April 2010 – Finalize studies / assessments / papers listed above with extensive input from the Expert Group on Indirect Impacts as well as the GHG Expert Group
    • May 2010 – 1st draft of proposal for integrating indirect impacts in P&Cs, Definitions, Indicators
    • May/June 2010 – Indirect impact workshop to discuss previous two items and propose new solutions
    • June 2010 – RSB Steering Board to take stock of the latest progress on the topic and to consider a proposal on indirect impact integration in P&Cs, Definitions, Indicators

Information from the Way forward on Indirect Impacts (PDF).

History

  • Click here to see the report and presentations of the 1st RSB stakeholder meeting (28th of November, 2006)!
  • Click here to view all the background documents and reports from the RSB discussions between April 2007 and August 2008.
  • After releasing the "Version Zero" in August 2008, the RSB coordinated an international dialogue in conjunction with non-governmental organizations, companies, governments and inter-governmental groups from all over the world through the BioenergyWiki, emails, virtual meetings and regional stakeholder meetings.
  • Consultation and discussions on "Version Zero" (on the way to Version 1) was open through February 2009. The Roundtable did extensive outreach to all relevant stakeholder groups including opportunities at the following conferences throughout 2009: internationally at Natur Kongress, World Biofuel Market and Asian Biofuels Roundtable and in North America at the Southeastern United States RSB Stakeholder Consultation, Western United States RSB Stakeholder Consultation and Midwest US Stakeholder Outreach Meeting. For more information, including agendas and presentations from the North American events see the wiki page "RSB outreach in the Americas".

Events

The RSB team will be attending the following events.

RSB Newsletters

News

  • Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels adopts 50% GHG Threshold for Compliant Fuel Blends, 23 July 2010 by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels: As reported in the Summary Report of the RSB Steering Board Meeting held 15-17 June 2010 in Lausanne, Switzerland, the RSB Steering Board adopted a “significant and ambitious” decision regarding the GHG Emissions Threshold (Criterion 3c) that should be established for RSB-qualifying biofuels.
    • The decision adopted by consensus was that "[T]he blend obtained by a retailer/blender by mixing RSB compliant biofuels from various sources, shall have 50% lower GHG emissions than fossil fuel on average. Such blend of biofuels or a neat biofuel (i.e. pure biofuel sold unblended) cannot make any claim of compliance if it does not reduce GHG emissions by 50%."
    • In addition, 'all individual RSB compliant biofuels shall have lower GHG emissions over their life cycle, compared to the fossil fuel baseline".[2]
  • Alaska Airlines, Boeing, & Airports Partner on Biofuels, 14 July 2010 by Bill DiBenedetto: "Their endeavor, called the “Sustainable Aviation Fuel Northwest” project, is the first regional assessment of its kind in the U.S., according to a joint announcement from the group this week."
    • "The assessment will examine all phases of developing a sustainable biofuel industry, including biomass production and harvest, refining, transport infrastructure and actual use by airlines. It will include an analysis of potential biomass sources that are indigenous to the Pacific Northwest, including algae, agriculturally based oilseeds such as camelina, wood byproducts and others. The project is jointly funded by the participating parties and is expected to be completed in about six months."
    • "Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Jim Albaugh added, 'Developing a sustainable aviation fuel supply now is a top priority both to ensure continued economic growth and prosperity at regional levels and to support the broader aim of achieving carbon-neutral growth across the industry by 2020.'"
    • "The assessment process will be managed by Climate Solutions, an Olympia, WA, environmental nonprofit organization, which will align the effort to sustainability criteria developed by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels. The project’s objective is to identify potential pathways and necessary actions to make aviation biofuel commercially available to airline operators serving the region."[3]


                        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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