This month, following the discussion about the need for sustainability criteria in reaching the 10% biofuels target within the EU Directive for the Promotion of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, the hypothesis for comment is:

"The 10% EU target is required to establish a 100% sustainable biofuels market within ten years”

This week, our guest commenting on this Sustatement is Raffaello Garofalo, Secretary General of the European Biodiesel Board (EBB), an organisation that represents 66 companies from the European biodiesel sector, which currently supplies around 80% of all biodiesel used in the EU.

“We should focus on the right issue to debate: distinguish between the right and the bad type of biofuels rather than to have or not have biofuels.

The 10% biofuels mandate by the EU is absolutely necessary to establish a sustainable biofuels market. It’s also necessary because biofuels are the only way to reduce GHG emissions from the transport sector. Because the Emissions Trading Scheme does not cover the transport sector, the EU needs a mandatory target under unified European level biofuel legislation instead of different national laws.

To achieve the target in a sustainable way we believe the sustainability criteria is crucial. Regarding sustainability we should distinguish between production in Europe and production in other countries. Today, already without criteria, the biodiesel European production is sustainable. However, as the market grows in the future we will need to import more feedstock or biofuels directly.

Therefore, it is crucial for the EU to harmonise the criteria with other stakeholders at an international level. Furthermore, I believe it would be more fair and logical to apply sustainability criteria not just to biofuels, but also to other agricultural products for food or chemical products. In the case of palm oil for example, criteria should be applied to the whole production used by different industries instead of just on that palm oil use to produce biofuels.

The only way to reach second generation biofuels is to concentrate on first generation biofuels development, while assigning time and funds for research and development to reach them as soon as possible."