European Union Biofuels Initiative Found Lacking in Procedure and Supervision: Audit

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Thursday July 28, 2016

Given that integrity is one of the fundamental elements required for the ongoing advancement of the biofuels sector, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) has delivered a blow to the European Union's Renewable Energy Directive by finding that weaknesses in recognition and supervision of the system could compromise the EU's 2020 targets for renewable energy in transport.

The Renewable Energy Directive states that all EU countries must ensure that at least 10 percent of their transport fuels come from renewable sources by 2020, and currently most biofuels placed on the EU market are certified through voluntary schemes recognised by the European Commission.

However, the Court auditors found weaknesses in the Commission's recognition procedure and in its supervision, specifically: "the Commission did not require schemes to verify whether biofuel production carried risks such as conflict over land ownership, forced or child labour, poor working conditions for farmers and dangers to health and safety," according to a recently released statement.

Further, "The schemes' assessments did not cover the impact on biofuel sustainability of indirect land‐use change (when more land is cultivated for food to make up for crops used in biofuel production)."

While the Court acknowledged that assessing indirect land‐use change presents technical difficulties, "without this information the relevance of the certification system is undermined."

Recommendations from the Court include: assessing how much biofuel production entails significant socioeconomic risks and indirect land‐use change; verifying that feedstock producers comply with environmental requirements for agriculture; and providing sufficient evidence of the origin of waste and residues used for biofuels.

Bettina Jakobsen, a member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the report, said, "The 2020 targets for sustainable energy in transport are important for the EU environment and for all transport users; but tracking the achievement of the targets must be based on sound data and a reliable certification system."

A long history of challenges have accompanied the Renewable Energy Directive and stretch back to 2012 at least, when the European Commission proposed limits on food-based biofuels in an effort to stimulate development of "second generation" biofuels from non-food feedstock to meet the directive's target.