Battle of the Biofuels as Shipping Takes a Stand against Using Crops

February 17, 2025

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by Charlie Bartlett (The Loadstar) The IMO’s Intersessional Working Group on Greenhouse Gases (ISWG-GHG 18) has become an ideological battleground, with shipping lines taking a stance against crop biofuels, one of few alternatives to fossil fuels available today.

Activist group Transport & Environment (T&E) said today some 34 million hectares – an area the size of Germany – would be needed, along with the deforestation and enormous agricultural carbon emissions associated with that, to cultivate sufficient biofuel to decarbonise shipping.

But the issue is not inherent to the use of biofuels, T&E spokesperson Sam Hargreaves told The Loadstar. Rather, it was the lack of a distinction at the IMO between crop biofuels, like palm and soy oil, and waste-derived ones, like used cooking oil.

“The IMO’s ambition for 2050 is not a bad one at all, but without an exclusion [of crop biofuels], it’s a crazy idea.”

Interests pushing for crop biofuels include Brazil and Argentina, as well as Malaysia, the world’s biggest palm oil producer.

“At least at the EU level they have excluded food crops, animal fats – but there is no global agreement,” Mr Hargreaves explained.

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A number of additional provisions must be in place if a switch to biofuels is to generate a real decrease in CO2 emissions. One of these has to do with how this biofuel is made. If production processes harness waste products, such as used cooking oil, agricultural run-off, and sewage, as feedstocks – the products of industrial and municipal processes which would occur at any rate – the fuels generated would be truly carbon-neutral.

Neither is shipping the only industry competing for the very limited feedstocks of waste-based biofuel.

“Used cooking oil is the only one where there’s a lot of availability,” confirmed Mr Hargreaves. “But if you compare it to the demand from aviation and shipping, the supply is not there.” READ MORE

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Excerpt from Splash 24/7: Hapag-Lloyd and Louis Dreyfus Armateurs are among a host of shipping lines and organisations initiating a big pushback campaign today against the growing use of biofuels in shipping, warning that an area the size of Germany would need to be recultivated to meet potential projected growth of this alternative marine fuel.

The eighteenth Intersessional Working Group on Greenhouse Gases (ISWG-GHG 18) starts its meeting at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) today, discussing regulatory measures to enable the shipping industry to become net zero by 2050.

Determined to push back against the rise in biofuel use, many NGOs and shipping lines have come out in force today arguing that the majority of biofuels produced now from food crop-based feedstocks come with direct and indirect deforestation, and many other sustainability issues ranging from water scarcity to food security.

“Unless legally-binding safeguards are introduced, there is a risk that a large amount of fossil fuels will be replaced with unsustainable biofuels,” signatories to one campaign that also include Hoegh Autoliners argue in an open letter sent to the IMO.

Nearly a third of global shipping could run on biofuels in 2030, new analysis from NGO Transport & Environment (T&E) shows, up from less than 1% today.

The study by Cerulogy on behalf of T&E shows that palm and soy oil would likely make up nearly two-thirds of the biodiesel used to power the shipping industry in 2030 as they represent the cheapest fuels to comply. This poses a serious climate problem, warns T&E, as palm and soy are responsible for two to three times more carbon emissions than even the dirtiest shipping fuels today, once deforestation and land clearance are taken into account.

The fuel-intensive shipping industry would need vast amounts of farmland. 34m hectares in 2030 – the total area of Germany – will be needed to produce enough crops to meet the increased biofuels demand from the shipping industry.

When the EU decided to encourage the use of biofuels in 2009, the consumption of palm oil-based biofuels doubled between 2010 and 2020, reaching close to a third of EU biofuels use. Scientific evidence later demonstrated that 45% of palm oil expansion happened at the expense of carbon rich ecosystems like forests or peatlands over that same period. Similar findings have been uncovered for other crop-based feedstock such as soy.

Evidence on the negative impacts has prompted countries such as France, Norway, the Netherlands, and others to restrict or stop palm and soy-based biofuels in domestic use. Europe has also decided to exclude the use of feed- and food-based biofuels from its flagship shipping fuels regulation (FuelEU).

Signatories have called on the IMO and member states to discourage the use of crop-based biofuels by ships and to consider the excluding crop-based biofuels from the eligibility list for compliance with existing and future MARPOL Annex VI regulations.

Signatories argued that with biofuels, the industry risks deploying a cure worse than the disease to address shipping’s climate impact.

Constance Dijkstra, shipping manager at T&E, said: “Fuelling cargo ships with deforestation is a terrible idea. Burning crops for fuel is bad for the planet and bad for global food security. The IMO should consider the climate impact of bad biofuels to avoid doing more harm than good.”

A separate letter sent to the IMO today – led by Biofuelwatch and the Global Forest Coalition – has addressed similar concerns.

In April the IMO will finalise new climate rules for shipping to try to phase out fossil fuels with a global fuel standard (GFS) likely to be implemented which could either speed up shipping’s transition to renewable energy, or see the industry become a large demand sector for biofuels.

An influential proposal from Brazil risks replacing fossil fuels with biofuels, which raises serious concerns among conservation groups about the potential environmental and food security impacts of this plan.

According to a recent submission to the IMO by T&E, biofuels could make up almost half (44%) of shipping’s energy demand by 2035, most of which will derive from food- and feed-based crops (soy and palm oil), unless the fuel standard is carefully designed to exclude these categories.

Biofuelwatch mobilised a similar warning on aviation a few years ago. Now, sensing a new potential danger, the NGO is worried that shipping could make the same, or even bigger mistake.

While many shipping companies have embraced recycled vegetable oil as an alternative fuel, campaigners have hit out at this too arguing that wastes and residues, including animal fats, are in limited supply and existing demand far exceeds their availability. Furthermore, many of those residues and wastes have high indirect greenhouse gas emissions, due to competition between biofuels and other uses.

Analysis from T&E shows a 20,000 teu boxship travelling between China and Brazil would alone require the yearly waste oil from more than 2,000 McDonald’s restaurants, while to run it on animal fats would require over 1m pigs. READ MORE

Excerpt from Offshore Energy: However, at the global level, no such restrictions are proposed. The letter calls for the IMO to exclude crop-based biofuels from regulatory compliance and ensure that crop-based biofuels do not benefit from economic incentives directed towards promoting zero and near-zero emission fuels.

As per T&E, a clear definition of what constitutes a ‘zero’ and ‘near zero’ emission fuel is needed. This would exclude deforestation-linked biofuels, cap food-based biofuels and incentivize green e-fuels made from green hydrogen. READ MORE

Excerpt from Offshore Energy: In July 2023, the IMO adopted the Revised Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Strategy committing to net-zero GHG emissions by around 2050. One of the key policies to achieve this target is the Global Fuel Standard (GFS), which aims to incentivize the use of clean energy on ships. The IMO promised to finalize the standard in April 2025 through a series of meetings to be held in London over the coming three months, beginning with a key discussion on February 17-21.

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“The design of the Global Fuel Standard should be based on stringent life cycle assessment guidelines that exclude the use of biofuels while protecting the climate, the environment, and people’s livelihoods.”

Biofuelwatch, GFC and the other signatories to the letter called on the IMO to exclude biofuels from the GFS and prioritize ‘real’ solutions to climate change, including demand reduction, efficiency improvements, and adoption of advanced propulsion technologies such as wind-assisted technologies and electrification.

The letter also called on the IMO to implement stringent life cycle assessment guidelines that protect ecosystems and human livelihoods.

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Brazil, the world’s second-largest biofuel producer behind the United States, has proposed biofuels as a long-term solution for shipping.

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By excluding biofuels from the GFS, the IMO can align with its climate commitments and safeguard global ecosystems and communities, GFC and Biofuelwatch added, urging all IMO Member States to reject biofuels and commit to clean energy solutions that prioritize environmental sustainability and social justice. READ MORE

Excerpt from Biobased Diesel Daily: Proponents of soy-based biofuels argue that the theory of indirect land-use change (ILUC) espoused by opponents of crop-based biofuels is flawed, and that actual, scientific real-word data show the claims made about soy-based biofuels and deforestation are false.

ILUC theory from two decades ago did not take into account the productivity and efficiency improvements enabled by modern precision agriculture adopted by farmers over the past 20 years.

Last year, eight lifecycle-analysis scientists submitted an amicus brief for U.S. litigation regarding the Renewable Fuel Standard that indicated ILUC theory is not consistently supported by scientific evidence.

“Research based on misclassifications of land use and flawed assumptions and methodologies spurred skepticism about the environmental and GHG-emission reduction benefits of biofuels, but that research has since been disproven,” the brief stated.

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In 2023, the IMO agreed to a new climate strategy that includes reaching net-zero greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions “by or around, i.e., close to, 2050.”

In the meantime, the IMO has set the target of cutting emissions by 20 percent to 30 percent by 2030 and 70 percent to 80 percent by 2040, against 2008 levels.

A key part of this is the Global Fuel Standard, which would force ships to reduce their GHG emissions by switching to cleaner, alternative fuels. READ MORE