Steps towards the development of a certification system for sustainable Bio-energy trade

Authors: Iris M. Lewandowski and André P.C. Faaij

Utrecht University, Department of Science, Technology and Society, Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development and Innovation, Heidelberglaan 2, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands,

Abstract
It is expected that international biomass trade will significantly increase in the coming years because of the possibly lower costs of imported biomass, the better supply security through diversification and the support by energy and climate policies of various countries. Concerns about potential negative effects of large scale biomass production and export, like deforestation or the competition between food and biomass production, have led to the demand for sustainability criteria and certification systems that can control biomass trade. Because neither such criteria and indicator sets nor certification systems for sustainable biomass trade are yet available the objective of this study is to generate information that can help to develop them. For this purposes existing certification systems, sets of sustainability criteria or guidelines on environmental or social sound management of resources are analyzed with the purpose to learn about the requirements, contents and organizational set ups of a certification system for sustainable biomass trade. First an inventory of existing systems was made; secondly their structures were analyzed. Key finding from the analysis of internationally applied certification systems was that they are generally led by an international panel that represents all countries and stakeholder involved in the biomass production and trade activities. In a third and fourth step different approaches to formulate standards were described and a list of more than 100 social, economic, ecological and general criteria for sustainable biomass trade was extracted from the reviewed systems. Fifth methods to formulate indicator, that make sustainability criteria measurable, and verifier that are used to control the performance of indicators are described. It is recommended to further develop the criteria and indicator (C&I) sets for sustainable biomass trade by involvement of the relevant stakeholder (e.g. biomass producer and consumer) and the analysis of local conditions (e.g. local production potentials and limits, preferences of local people). This can be done studies on ‘real’ cases and biomass projects.

The document can be downloaded here: fairbiotradecertification.pdf [594 KB]