indirect land use change (ILUC) risks can be mitigated, says E&Y report

In Belgium, a new report by Ernst & Young indicates that indirect land use change (ILUC) risks can be mitigated by incentives that encourage existing and additional sustainable practices in biofuels production, as well as other sectors that use agricultural commodities. The report, commissioned by a diverse consortium of industry and NGOs, supports a new policy option that incentivizes land use change mitigation practices and supports best practice and behavioral change in the production of biofuels.

The policy option proposed by the consortium differs from the four ILUC mitigation measures currently under consideration by the European Commission, but it does provide opportunities to combine incentives with the more punitive approaches. This proposal could be implemented by extending the application of carbon incentives, already established by the Directive for degraded land, to qualifying mitigation measures identified in the report.

ILUC mitigation practices identified by Ernst & Young include the development of advanced generation biofuels, improvements to crop yields on existing agricultural land, the use of co-products for animal feed purposes, and crop production on abandoned lands. The report recommends that incentivizing these additional sustainability practices would reduce the risk of biofuels production indirectly contributing to the conversion of new land for agricultural production that could result in increased carbon emissions. Importantly, the incentive would only be available to producers who implement verifiable ILUC mitigation practices.

The proposed policy would require no public funding and, if built into EU policy, would improve the sustainability of biofuels production and increase investor confidence in Europe as the leader in sustainable biofuels.

The full report can be downloaded here via biofuelsdigest.com.

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Tags: Ernst & Young, ILUC

Category: Policy