VTT researcher shows how EU RED sustainability criteria could use some adjustments

In Finland, only biofuels meeting certain sustainability criteria are included in the European Union’s renewable energy goals and are allowed to take advantage of national support systems. In her doctoral dissertation, VTT’s Research Scientist Kati Koponen proposes several areas of development for the greenhouse gas assessment method of the criteria. Koponen has studied how a tool, based on life cycle assessment, can be applied to policy-driven decision-making related to biofuels and what challenges the assessment entails.

While life cycle assessment has been widely used for assessing the environmental impacts of products, the method still entails challenges related to, for instance, system boundary setting, allocation of emissions between different products as well as the definition of calculation parameters. When life cycle assessment is used in political decision-making, the required simplifications may cause further method-related problems. The research results show that the current EU calculation method alone cannot ensure the climate benefits of biofuels.