England’s Royal Society calls for global sustainability criteria as UK parliamentary committee seeks biofuels moratorium

In England, the Royal Society published a 90-page report titled ‘Sustainable biofuels: prospects and challenges’, which made postive comments about the potential of biofuels in greenhouse gas emission reductions, but called for a common set of sustainability criteria to be established globally. The report warned against “a risk that we may become locked into inefficient and potentially environmentally harmful biofuels supply chains.” Tim Yeo, chairman of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) said “Biofuels can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but at present most biofuels have a detrimental impact on the environment overall,” and his committee called for a moratorium on biofuels.

Earlier this month, a consortium of 17 non-governmental organizations called on EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs to require sustainability standards for biofuel production or eliminate biofuels mandates.

The NGOs were responding to a draft biofuels mandate for the EU which will be finalized later this month and raises the use of biofuels to 10 percent of all fuels by 2020. The NGOs said that the plan did not fully address water shortage and deforestation issues. The NGOs called for a ban on the use of sugar cane, corn, and some varieties of canola and palm oils in biofuels production. The NGOs proposed threshold, that only feedstocks producing a minimum savings of 50 percent in CO2, has won significant support in the European Parliament.

Last sumnmer, Nielsen released its Nielsen BuzzMetrics Q2 2007 Sustainability Buzz Report, finding that the term “sustainability,” has increased its buzz levels 169% in the past year. BuzzMetric reports usage of terms in blogs and other online sites. The rise in “buzz” comes as ethanol has met with increasing criticism from past supporters, who attribute higher food prices and emissions of key volatile organic compounds including nitrous oxides (NOx) to increased ethanol usage.

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