International standards being formulated for Biofuels

Tuesday 26 August 2008

Word out of Europe is that 300 experts and representatives of the public and private sectors have come together in the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels, housed at the EPFL Energy Centre, to develop global norms for the economic and environmental impacts of biofuels.

The standard is intended to be used by investors, governments, corporations and civil society groups to assess the sustainability of different biofuels. “With all of the mixed messages we hear about biofuels, there is a clear need for a standard that can differentiate the good from the bad,” said Claude Martin, chair of the Roundtable and former Director-General of WWF International. “For an issue of such seminal importance, it was necessary to bring many different stakeholder groups together to agree on how to define and measure sustainable biofuels. The publication of the first draft standard represents an important consensus for how we can judge the development of this industry”.

The draft criteria of the Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuels, developed through a multi-stakeholder process, are based on a comprehensive “land to tank” analysis, covering the whole chain of biofuels’ production. ‘Version Zero’ of the standard will now undergo six months of global stakeholder consultation for incorporation into what will become Version One to be released in April 2009.