Talk:Biofuel Sustainability Tag

From BioenergyWiki

Everyone is strongly encouraged to discuss advantages and disadvantages of this scheme:

Pro's and Con's

1. It would ensure Climate Change mitigation by discouraging biofuel production that causes more emissions than it mitigates (“fake” biofuels) due to land conversion including forest clearing and associated soil organic carbon loss, as well as inefficiency of production and the supply-chain...)
2. Venture capitalists might be interested because it would reduce/eliminate the risk (reputational, financial) involved with public discoveries of negative aspects of biofuel production (headlines like “GHG-lie of biofuels”). There are risks for individual companies as well as for the biofuel sector as a whole. In a worst-case scenario the investments would pop like the IT-bubble (e.g. if the national support of biofuel is dropped due to public pressure).
3. Transparency: Every link in the supply chain would be able to choose between more or less sustainable biofuel options. Thus the market would no longer be blind to these issues and market forces have a chance to lead to more sustainable production.
4. Since the current rapid development of biofuels does not include sustainability aspects there is currently no incentive for corporations to hire expertise on sustainability and invest in R&D towards more sustainable production. Market transparency would change this.
5. Market transparency would be very interesting for investors focusing on responsible investment. In turn, green funds would more likely include companies with higher sustainability criteria on the biofuels the produce or use.
6. Farmers in the US might be interested in this in order to increase their competitiveness compared to less sustainable biofuel production outside of the national regulations. They might especially embrace this since biofuel production outside the US is under current (sustainability-blind) market conditions potentially much more competitive (in the tropics there is more sun, longer vegetation periods, and more productive feedstock plants can be used)
7. National regulations on minimum sustainability standards for biofuel could be established,
   • To protect national (more sustainable) biofuel production.
8. The EU is working on a certification scheme (different, though)
9. It should be faster to implement than a new certification scheme from scratch (important at the current growth rate of biofuel-projects)
10. It would probably more cost efficient than a new certification scheme from scratch, since it builds upon existing structures.