Environmental accreditation and carbon certification of biofuels for road transport – the UK experience

Neil Wallis and Jessica Chalmers, Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, United Kingdom

Keywords

biofuels, carbon certification, accreditation, greenhouse gases, climate change, life-cycle emissions, well-to-wheel, environment, carbon dioxide, CO2

Abstract

The UK Government has made a commitment to put the UK on a path towards a reduction in CO2 emissions of 60 per cent by 2050. The Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) will help bring the UK closer to meeting European Union Directive 2003/30/EU (1 European Commission, 2003) which sets targets for all EU countries for biofuel usage of 2 % by the end of 2005 and 5.75 % by the end of 2010. The RTFO is a requirement on transport fuel suppliers to ensure that, by 2010, 5 % of all road vehicle fuel is supplied from sustainable, renewable resources. The UK Government claims that the RTFO will save around one million tonnes of CO2 in 2010; the equivalent of taking a million – of the UK’s 30 million – cars off the road.

To hit the Government’s targets, emissions of carbon dioxide through all the phases (crop production, conversion, transportation and use) of biofuels must reach the higher levels of carbon savings shown to be possible in independent studies. Potential carbon savings can vary significantly – from 7 to 77 % in one major study – depending on a number of factors including the use of fertilisers, the type of production process used and the treatment of by-products.

The UK Government is developing a carbon and sustainability assurance scheme as part of the RTFO. Companies subject to the Obligation will be obliged to report on the carbon savings they achieve and other aspects of the sustainability of their biofuel supplies. This paper provides an update on progress and assesses the likely impacts of the assurance scheme.

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