'Weaknesses' in certifying sustainable biofuels 'could undermine' EU's 2020 renewable energy goals

EU legislation defines biofuels as “liquid or gaseous fuel for transport produced from biomass”, e.g. from biodegradable agricultural products
EU legislation defines biofuels as “liquid or gaseous fuel for transport produced from biomass”, e.g. from biodegradable agricultural products

Weaknesses in the system of certifying sustainable biofuels could undermine the basis of the EU’s 2020 targets for renewable energy in transport.

According to a new report from the European Court of Auditors, EU Member States can only use biofuels certified as sustainable to reach their 2020 target of sourcing ten per cent of the energy in transport from renewable sources.

Most biofuels placed on the EU market are certified through voluntary schemes recognised by the European Commission.

But the auditors concluded that the schemes suffer from weaknesses in the Commission’s recognition procedure and in its supervision.

'Important for EU environment'

"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.

"That is what our audit set out to examine", said Bettina Jakobsen, the Member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the report.

The auditors found that 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.

The schemes’ assessments did not cover the impact on biofuel sustainability of indirectland-use change (when more land is cultivated for food to make up for crops used in biofuel production).

The auditors accept that assessing indirect land-use change presents technical difficulties, but without this information the relevance of the certification system is undermined.

'Lacking procedures'

The Commission gave recognition to schemes lacking procedures to ensure that biofuels did indeed come from waste or that feedstocks fulfilled environmental requirements, say the auditors.

Some schemes were not transparent enough or were governed by only a few members, which increased the risk of conflict of interest as well as prevented effective communication with other stakeholders.

The Commission does not supervise the operations of voluntary schemes and can therefore not be sure that these actually apply the standards on which they have been certified or detect infringements of the rules.

Member States are responsible for the reliability of their statistics on sustainable biofuels counting towards the achievement of the ten per cent transport energy target.

But the auditors found the statistics might be overestimated, because Member States could include biofuel whose sustainability was not verified. There were also problems with the comparability of data.