IEA Bioenergy Annual Report 2018

(IEA Bioenergy) This document contains the report of the IEA Bioenergy Executive Committee for 2018. This year, we have presented a special feature ‘ Measuring, governing and gaining support for sustainable bioenergy supply chains – lessons and messages from a three-year Inter-Task project’, the preparation of which was led by Task 40.

On 10 January 2018, a seminar was held at the European Parliament in Brussels on the topic “What does science tell us about biofuels?”. The seminar was organised by IEA Bioenergy, the Swedish 2030 Secretariat and Chalmers University of Technology. The authors of the so-called Globiom report were invited to give background on their
conclusions.

• Overall, the role of biofuels to bridge part of the decarbonisation in transport is very important. In the 2DS scenario of IEA (focused on reaching the climate targets agreed in the Paris Agreement) energy efficiency measures, electrification
and sustainable biofuels are complementary key measures in transport. Biofuels would represent around 30% of energy consumption in transport by 2060. Their role is particularly important in sectors which are difficult to decarbonise, such as aviation, shipping and other long-haul transport.

• Land use change modelling – like the Globiom initiative – evaluates a specific policy, and depending on the policy, the impacts per feedstock will be different, e.g. depending on market growth rates and accompanying measures. So iLUC emission factors are not fixed numbers, and should not just be added to LCA GHG emissions of a certain pathway.

• Some biofuels have more risks of iLUC, with highest risk currently related to palm oil production. Nevertheless, there are ways to manage and reduce iLUC impacts. iLUC is much lower when focusing on restoring abandoned agricultural land; a lot of agricultural land is abandoned for economic reasons, also in Europe. Land use change emissions can even be ‘negative’ for lignocellulosic crops, which means that soils sequester more carbon than in the reference case. This implies that land use change can be positive.

• If adequate measures are taken to reduce deforestation and peatland oxidation (through other dedicated policies) indirect land use change impacts would be very low, also for crop based biofuels. This would be the case if all countries would comply with the agreements on LULUCF made at the COP21 in Paris.

While LUC is commonly perceived as a negative aspect of bioenergy development, there are many examples of how the strategic placement, design and management of perennial grasses and short-rotation coppice and trees can provide biomass for various purposes while enhancing landscape diversity and improving conditions for a multitude of ecosystem
services, including enhanced retention of nutrients and sediment, erosion control, climate regulation, pollination, pest and disease control, and flood control. Such beneficial LUC can thereby be effective in mitigating environmental impacts of current agricultural practices, ....

This case study investigates how sustainability governance was put into effect with regard to the German biogas market, which is the largest national biogas market worldwide.

Since the early 2000s, the sustainability of bioenergy and biogas in particular is subject to constant scrutiny, especially in the fields of economic and environmental sustainability. However, discussion on sustainability not only takes place in the scientific area but also in the public arena, mainly via traditional and social media. Public concerns about the sustainability of biogas started with the issue of energy crop cultivation for biogas production in the 2010s. To steer sustainability in the biogas sector, a broad variety of regulations and acts were enacted, mainly via top-down lawmaking. However, in order to govern sustainability in every step of the value chain, involvement of numerous stakeholders
in the biogas sector is necessary. Therefore, we took a closer look at the involvement of these various stakeholders at different stages of production and consumption of biogas, in order to improve their involvement and nurture an effective future development.

In Canada, the forest sector plays a key role in the social and economic development of hundreds of communities across the country. For example, in Quebec, the current forest industrial network is developed around sawmills and pulpmills. Bioenergy from forest biomass is still nascent, despite an abundance of forest resources across its mostly publicly
owned, and largely third-party certified, boreal landscapes.

The municipality of La Tuque, located in the Mauricie region of Quebec, has been working to establish on its territory the first Canadian biorefinery producing biodiesel from forest biomass. Since its foundation in 1909, La Tuque’s development has been largely based on hydropower and forestry. However, bioenergy in the form of liquid biofuels represents a new
product. The feedstock envisioned for this production would be clearcut harvest residues, which were historically left unused on forest sites or by roadside. The acceptability of such a project within La Tuque, and the willingness of its inhabitants to be actively involved in the establishment and operation of the biorefinery, partly hinges on the local perceptions and expectations towards the future biorefinery.

How to improve the input and output legitimacy of existing and proposed sustainability governance systems?

Work aimed at answering this question included building theory on how legitimacy of sustainability governance systems for bioenergy and the bioeconomy can be increased, as a basis for improving the granting and achieving of trust among relevant stakeholders, now and in the future. While we still consider it too early to suggest theories, we suggest new hypotheses, which we suggest will help to create trust in bioenergy. These were based on evidence found in several case studies:
• Include bioenergy policies and financial incentives as integrated parts of a comprehensive and holistic sustainability governance framework for bioenergy, which would define standards with a high level of democratic input, and tradeoffs involved based on data and scientific knowledge, where appropriate.
• Integrate governance with systems that transparently monitor the development of relevant indicators, and allow for open exchange of experiences among the involved actors.
• Develop sustainability governance systems to become more efficient, by using the available resources and time for targeted monitoring and auditing of issues with high sustainability risks.
• Make a long-term effort to engage with relevant actors for them to play the needed roles in mitigation of encountered sustainability risks.
• Build comprehensive spatial databases for documentation of sustainability against multiple standards, as this may render expensive management of unit level governance redundant over time. READ MORE