Sustainability of biofuels and bioproducts: socio-economic impact assessment

Abstract

Many countries worldwide are increasingly engaging in the promotion of biomass production for industrial uses such as biofuels and bioproducts (chemicals, bioplastics, etc.). Until today, mainly biofuels were supported by European policies, but support for bioproducts is still lacking behind. Thus, also the public sustainability debate concentrated on biofuels, but so far not on bioproducts. Driven by the strong public debate on sustainability aspects, biofuels are confronted with many environmental and socio-economic impacts. For instance, social impacts, which can be both positive and negative, include property rights, labour conditions, social welfare, economic wealth, poverty reduction, etc. In order to address these sustainability aspects of biomass production for industrial uses, different national and international efforts towards certification systems have been evolving, including the European Renewable Energy Directive (RED). However, besides many efforts on environmental aspects, there is a general lack of socio-economic considerations. This gap is addressed by the EU-FP7 Global-Bio-Pact project in a comprehensive approach involving partners from Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The main aim of the Global-Bio-Pact project is the improvement and harmonisation of global sustainability certification systems for biomass production, conversion systems and trade in order to prevent negative socio-economic impacts. Thereby, emphasis is placed on an assessment of the socio-economic impacts of raw material production and a variety of biomass conversion chains. This paper presents an overview of socioeconomic sustainability issues of biofuels and bioproducts worldwide based on first results of the Global-Bio-Pact Case Studies in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Europe, Indonesia, Mali, and Tanzania. These Case Studies investigate the whole value chain from feedstock production to intermediate and end products. They include the production and conversion chains of jatropha, palm oil, soy, sugar cane and lignocellulosic biomass which are investigated at different scales.