Questions over sustainability remain as UK exceeds biofuel target

Only a fifth of feedstocks used to produce biofuels for the UK market last year met the government's Environmental Qualifying Standard, falling well short of a target to ensure 30 per cent of biofuels meet sustainability criteria.

That is the conclusion of the latest report from the independent Renewable Fuels Agency (RFA), which found that while progress is being made to ensure biofuels are sourced in a sustainable manner, the vast majority of feedstocks are still bought from producers that fail to follow standards designed to curb biodiversity loss, limit deforestation and maximise emissions savings.

The report looks at the first year of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), which originally set a target to ensure that five per cent of UK fuels came from biofuel by 2010/11. The government last year responded to concerns about the sustainability of biofuels by slowing down the rate of adoption and putting the five per cent target back until 2013/14.

However, the report found that the UK is now on schedule to exceed the target with over 2.7 per cent of the UK’s fuel for road transport coming from biofuels during 2008/09.

Moreover, concerns remain about the sustainability of the biofuels that are being used, with the report admitting that it faced significant gaps in the data regarding where biofuel feedstocks were sourced from.

For example, the report calculated that on average the biofuel supplied delivers greenhouse gas emission savings of 46 per cent compared to fossil fuels. However, it admitted that 42 per cent of previous land-use for biofuel feedstocks was reported as "unknown", making it impossible to accurately calculate the full lifecyle emissions of the resulting biofuel.

"Emissions from any unknown land‑use change are not taken into account in the carbon savings figure... and it is possible that some fraction of the unknown land‑use change may have caused a significant release of stored carbon," the report warns.

The RFA lays the blame for incomplete data firmly at the door of biofuel suppliers, warning that "significant improvement will be required by all suppliers to meet the challenges of mandatory sustainability requirements under the EU’s forthcoming Renewable Energy Directive".

Morgan Stanley and Topaz were singled out for particular criticism for failing to meet any of the three government performance targets designed to ensure 30 per cent of feedstocks meet environmental standards, biofuels deliver greenhouse gas savings of 40 per cent, and that comprehensive data is provided on at least half of biofuels supplied.