Biofuel Governance Research Articles

Emerging Issues in Biofuel Policies and Governance Processes : The Case of United States Renewable Fuel Standard [U.S. RFS] and the European Union Renewable Energy Directive [EU-RED

Emerging Issues in Biofuel Policies and Governance Processes : The Case of United States Renewable Fuel Standard [U.S. RFS] and the European Union Renewable Energy Directive [EU-RED

Toward Sustainable Biofuels in the European Union? Lessons from a Decade of Hybrid Biofuel Governance

The European Union (EU) stands at a crossroads regarding its biofuel policies. For more than a decade, the EU sought to create a market for and govern sustainable biofuels for the transport sector, even as debates over sustainability escalated. It did so by devising novel hybrid (public and private) governance arrangements. We took stock of the nature and outcomes of this experiment in hybrid biofuel governance. We relied on qualitative methods of analysis, whereby we reviewed and synthesized the evolution of EU biofuel governance arrangements over time, through detailed document analysis of secondary and primary literature, including EU and related policy documents and private certification scheme websites. Our analysis reveals that, instead of yielding an increasingly stringent sustainability framework, the hybrid EU governance arrangements resulted in a proliferation of relatively lax, industry-driven, sustainability standards, even as the notion of “sustainable biofuels” remained contested in public and political debate. These findings contribute to an ongoing debate about the merits of hybrid (public–private) governance arrangements, and whether a hybrid approach helps strengthen or weaken sustainability objectives. We conclude that a more stringent EU meta-standard on sustainability needs to be developed, to underpin future governance arrangements.

Toward comparative institutional analysis of polycentric social‐ecological systems governance

AbstractIn this paper, we develop a conceptual approach that allows better understanding of what determines the performance of polycentric governance. The paper first identifies discrete structural alternatives of polycentric governance types (Public Service Industries). We suggest that efficient performance of Public Service Industries is shaped by variations in social‐problem characteristics (determining potential types of governance) and constitutional and overarching rules (of people's choosing), which jointly determine the credibility with which citizen‐consumers are able to discipline the activities of agents involved in governance. We illustrate this approach through the case of transnational biofuel governance in the European Union. We find that constitutionally granted (lack of) transparency and accountability are, in this case, pivotal for relatively inefficient governance of public goods. However, we also acknowledge the difficulties of assessing performance of polycentric governance based on single case studies. To overcome this problem, we suggest Comparative Institutional Analysis, which selects case studies according to social problem characteristics that are responsible for particular kinds of performance (e.g., efficiency) of polycentric governance types. This would allow scholars associated with the Bloomington School of Political Economy but also scholars analyzing governance from perspectives adopting similar assumptions to learn more about how constitutional rules shape the performance of polycentric governance types to build sound policy recommendations derived from this.

Biofuel research: perceptions of power and transition

Whether biofuels represent a sustainable innovation, a creative alternative, or a gold rush, very much depends on our perception of power and change with regard to sustainability. This article provides an overview of existing understandings of power in the research on biofuels, including positive perceptions that often lead to more optimistic evaluations of biofuels. It exposes the diversity with which one can understand power through three ideal type concepts: “power with,” “power to,” and “power over”. Integrating these concepts in one power framework allows for examining how the three dimensions interrelate with each other and developing the contours of a power lens on biofuel governance and research. With the 2007–2008 food price crisis, critics re-politicized the governance of biofuels. Several farmer associations have completely turned against biofuels. The article argues that this rejection of biofuels is due to a limited perception of power as a coercion and manipulation (power over). While the current governance of biofuels basically reproduces systems and positions, we should start to more seriously and intensively ask questions of where, when, and how the governance of biofuels may also allow for “green” resistance (power to) and collective empowerment (power with).

Do no harm? Risk perceptions in national bioenergy policies and actual mitigation performance

This paper investigates how risks are anticipated in national bioenergy policies and in which way related expectations that harms can be prevented or mitigated have actually been met. The paper draws on the national biofuel policies of ten countries and the EU, selected to represent a diverse sample of regions, producers and consumers, and pioneers and latecomers. It proceeds in two steps: firstly, it identifies three risk categories most frequently mentioned across the investigated national policies. Secondly, it conducts a systematic review of available empirical research about biofuels’ effects in these risk categories. Findings are discussed regarding the empirical conditions under which related expectations to do no harm have materialized or failed; and concerning the challenges of risks perception and management in actual policies. We observe issues of crop selection and inadequate sectoral governance of biofuels, but also challenges of large-scale modes of intensive production. Effective risk mitigation was often the result of risk adverse choices by contract farmers engaged in biofuels production. National policy documents have insufficiently conceptualized ‘do no harm’ concepts and strategies in place to address these performance issues; while remaining silent on the particular risk governance and accountability framework that keeps track of actual developments, commitments and responsibilities.

Sine Qua Nons of sustainable biofuels: Distilling implications of under-performance for national biofuel programs

Biofuels have been promoted worldwide under the assumption that they can support several strategic policy goals, while mitigating associated risks. Drawing on published evidence on performance, contributing papers to this Special Section question assumptions commonly attributed to biofuels: their carbon neutrality, their positive effect on rural livelihoods, and policymakers’ ability to effectively govern for sustainability. This paper takes these findings as its starting point and asks, “What next?” for countries wishing to advance biofuels as one option for the necessary divestment from fossil fuels. Deriving recommendations for national biofuel programs from past performance is no easy task. Context, complexity, power dynamics and scaling pose significant challenges to achieving policy aims. We are nevertheless able to distill a set of sine qua nons (indispensables) for sustainable biofuel governance from the evidence and change management literatures. They are put forward not as recipes for success, but minimum conditions and “best bet” approaches requiring testing, deliberation, and refinement. Perhaps the most fundamental sine qua non is to pursue options that downscale global demand – as current levels of global energy consumption, if only in the transport sector, cannot be met by biomass-derived agrofuels in a way that meets social and environmental sustainability goals.

Knowledge in Climate Policy Integration: How non‐governmental organizations re‐frame the sciences of indirect land‐use changes for policy‐makers

AbstractIn political debates about indirect land‐use changes (iLUCs) caused by biofuel development, environmental non‐governmental organizations (ENGOs) have demanded that the formulation of policies should be based on scientific evidence. However, scientific knowledge cannot become the basis of climate policy integration without agency input. Against this backdrop, this article analyses how the characterization of iLUCs alters as ENGOs mediate the knowledge of iLUC‐associated research into European Union (EU) policy‐making. After outlining the methodology of the frame analysis, I demonstrate how the different fields of scientific inquiry characterize iLUCs as contingent, uncertain and diverse. However, ENGOs re‐frame this phenomenon as determined, certain and unified. ENGOs transform the complexity of iLUCs into a form that is compatible with the EU's modality of approaching biofuels as a question of the decarbonization of transport. Finally, there was an opportunity through appraising iLUCs to revisit the criticized governance of biofuels, but which was not grasped by the EU. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Negotiating Authority in Global Biofuel Governance: Brazil and the EU in the WTO

The global demand for biofuels (liquid or gas fuels deriving from biomass) has grown dramatically in recent years. European Union policies that promote biofuels as more sustainable sources of transport fuel are partly driving this development. In this article, we analyze how Brazil, as a key producer of biofuels, navigates an emerging global governance context for sustainable biofuels. We do so by examining how Brazil responds to EU biofuel sustainability imperatives, including by evoking World Trade Organization disciplines in questioning their transnational validity and reach. While domestically Brazil emphasizes the social and developmental objectives of its biofuel policies, globally it frames itself as a leading producer of sustainable biofuels. In so doing, it navigates intersecting spheres of authority in a manner that promotes its own biofuel policy agenda, partly by seeking to reframe “sustainability” debates internationally to reflect its developmental agenda.

Indirect land-use change and biofuels: The contribution of assemblage theory to place-specific environmental governance

The blending of liquid biofuels into road transport fuel has been supported by legally binding targets in Europe since 2009. Concerns over the extent to which these targets might engender indirect land-use change (ILUC), however, have an equally long history. Brought about when biofuel production displaces existing agricultural activity into new territory, ILUC has the potential to exert deleterious impacts upon the global climate, biodiversity, water and soil quality, food security, and even land rights. This paper begins by illustrating how current approaches to addressing this problem, predicated on equilibrium modelling and the concept of emissions ‘factors’, effectively detach its impacts from their place-specific contexts. Drawing on a relational view of space, the paper then advances an alternative, assemblage-based approach to conceptualising ILUC. By emphasising ILUC's fluidity, indeterminacy and complexity, this approach questions the logic of relying solely on abstractive science and policy tools to address the problem. The paper concludes by advocating an alternative approach to remedying ILUC – one that imbricates both place-specific and globally aggregated representations of the problem. The paper has implications for research across multiple disciplines addressing the sustainable governance of transport biofuels and wider bioenergy systems as a whole.

Biofuel sustainability and the formation of transnational hybrid governance

We examine the transnational governance of biofuel sustainability and its coexistence with the WTO trade regime. The way in which the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED) is shaping transnational biofuel governance shows deep and mutual dependence between public and private. The EU relies on a private system of compliance and verification, but private certification schemes are dependent on the incentives provided by RED to expand commercially. A second layer of hybridity in this governance system is that it is emerging in the shadow of the WTO. EU policymakers refrained from introducing binding requirements for social sustainability criteria in RED, and left private certifiers to fill this gap. Our discussion also serves to introduce the symposium on the ‘Transnational Hybrid Governance’ (THG) of biofuels. The three contributions to the symposium analyse the complex making and mutual shaping of biofuel sustainability and discuss the institutional features, processes, networks, and sociotechnical devices by which markets are organised, and economic and political orders take shape.

Experimental biofuel governance: Historicizing social certification in Brazilian ethanol production

Amid debates questioning the social sustainability of ethanol, Brazilian industrialists sought an exportable social verification that could accompany sugarcane ethanol technology transfers to global South countries. Despite an effective national anti-slave labor pact and marketing campaigns promoting the sustainability of ethanol, in 2008, members of the federal government orchestrated a series of meetings between representatives from the state, sugarcane industry, and national labor organizations to discuss labor practices. They created “The National Commitment to Labor Conditions in Sugarcane Activity,” a voluntary certification program that they hoped would attest to fair working conditions on plantations and provide acknowledgment for participating businesses. After reports revealed gross violations of labor practices on complying plantations, the certificate was abandoned in 2013.In this paper, I trace the conditions that enabled this certificate to emerge and then fail as a state-sanctioned instrument for governing social justice in the Brazilian ethanol industry. I contend that understanding the emergence of neoliberal governance schemes requires analysis of the historical relationships that intersect with new geopolitical formations. In this case, the state engaged in an experimental form of governance in attempts to export a social certificate alongside technology transfers. This led to the conversion of rights into privileges with no official means for punishing non-complying companies, causing the certificate to lack efficacy and fail. I argue this by connecting the intersecting histories of labor unions, the ethanol industry, and the state to the contemporary factors that led to the need for a mechanism to attest to social sustainability.

The extraterritorial dimensions of biofuel policies and the politics of scale: live and let die?

Despite criticism, global biofuel production continues to rise, using primarily food crops. Between 2001 and 2012 it increased nearly six-fold, driven primarily by domestic policies, yet raising strong international concerns, eg over impacts on global food prices. Nevertheless, little international biofuel governance has emerged. This article examines the various extraterritorial dimensions of domestic biofuel policies and investigates why international biofuel governance has remained vague, despite its controversial nature. It uses the politics of scale to analyse why countries may wish to frame it as a global or domestic issue. Three extraterritorial dimensions are identified: global environmental impacts, global socioeconomic impacts, and attempts at extraterritorial control over biofuel production abroad. While major producers have successfully avoided liability for impacts by preventing the scaling up of much biofuel governance to the international level, major importers have tried to fill perceived governance gaps using policies aimed at extraterritorial control. We show that both the rise of nationally oriented development policies with extraterritorial impacts and of unilateral sustainability rule making primarily affect weaker countries, making global inequalities more pronounced. It is essential that adaptation governance take into account both environmental and global socioeconomic changes, such as higher agricultural commodity prices.

Legitimacy and eu Biofuel Governance: In Search of Greater Coherence

The eu regulatory framework for sustainable biofuels is an example of today’s dynamic European climate and energy governance. The article demonstrates that there are, however, particular internal controversies that continue to undermine the overall credibility of the eu biofuel regime, as well as the effectiveness and legitimacy of the scheme. In connection with the debate on new governance, the article explores the concepts of input and output legitimacy as regards the verification of compliance with biofuel sustainability criteria. The article shows that if the procedural requirements to satisfy input legitimacy are not met, there is a risk that output legitimacy—the credibility of the substantive outcome—will also be diminished. By paying attention to the process and harmonizing the itemized process-related elements we can improve both the appropriate achievement of the substantive outcome as well as the legitimacy of eu biofuel governance.

Science in Carbon Economies: Debating What Counts in US Biofuel Governance

This paper analyzes the scientific practices that constitute carbon economies by rendering carbon countable, fungible, and governable. Examining US biofuel governance, I draw on field research and document and policy analyses to consider the roles state, private industry, and civil society actors play in negotiating scientific practice in biofuel governance and to explore the geographically uneven consequences of contrasting science–society configurations. This research illustrates the complex and contradictory roles of nature's quantification and state-supported science in carbon economies. Although nature's quantification as carbon was initially used as a technology of opposition and accountability to limit vested interest power and maintain biofuels' greenhouse gas reduction capacity, it ultimately served industry interests by focusing policy deliberation on technical issues industry deftly navigated and away from policy rationale, value conflict, and biofuels' broader social–ecological consequences. Drawing attention to state-supported environmental risk assessment and place-based approaches to integrating science and agriculture, this research describes multiple, conflicting modes of state scientific practice and emphasizes the importance of considering multiple scientific perspectives in climate change research and intervention. I argue that, rather than focusing on mitigating climate change through universal, carbon-focused science alone, future science–society configurations should include efforts to build institutional capacity for transformation and adaptation to confront uneven and changing social–ecological circumstances using site-specific scientific knowledge.

Multi-actor governance of sustainable biofuels in developing countries: The case of Mozambique

This paper describes and analyses the multi-actor governance process that made Mozambique the first African nation-state to develop a national policy framework for sustainable biofuels. The paper draws on findings from action research conducted in Mozambique between December 2008 and July 2012. We analyse interactions between the changing governance context, the course of the multi-actor governance process, and the choices in relation to governance framework characteristics and content for four successive stages of governance framework development. This provides the basis for reflection on the competences required for effective multi-actor sustainability governance, and a discussion about the role of the nation-state in sustainability governance of global economies such as biofuels.The governance framework for sustainable biofuels has contributed to a more transparent and secure investment climate for biofuels in Mozambique. Key factors for success were (1) the presence of different types of competences during the various stages of the governance framework development, (2) closing the gap between ‘licences to sell’ and ‘licences to produce’ across different governance levels, and (3) balancing between the short- and long-term objectives for biofuel production in Mozambique and requirements of global biofuel markets. Developing-country nation-states can provide an essential contribution to these success-factors for global governance of sustainable biofuels.

The Role and Relevance of Private Actors in EU Biofuel Governance

This article examines the role of private actors in the implementation of the sustainability criteria for biofuels outlined in the Renewable Energy Directive of the European Union (EU). The article demonstrates that private verifiers' participation is essential for governing greener biofuels in the EU. The article's objective is twofold. First, it analyzes the two methods for the verification of compliance with the biofuels sustainability criteria, focusing on the role of private verifiers. This analysis sheds light on an interface of public and private action that is also an opportune platform for exploring theoretical concepts. Therefore, second, the article examines the relevance of private verifiers' participation in the implementation framework for sustainable biofuels. Drawing on the concepts of European ‘new governance’ and ‘co‐regulation’, the article shows that involving the private sector in the implementation of a legally binding EU Directive adds certain dynamics and constitutes modern regulatory innovation, but at the same time it makes the implementation framework more complex.

Livelihood impacts of biofuel crop production: Implications for governance

While much attention has focused on the climate change mitigation potential of biofuels, research from the social sciences increasingly highlights the social and livelihood impacts of their expanded production. Policy and governance measures aimed at improving the social effects of biofuels have proliferated but questions remain about their effectiveness across the value chain. This paper performs three tasks building on emerging insights from social science research on the deployment of biofuel crops. First, we identify livelihood dimensions that are particularly likely to be affected by their cultivation in the global South – income, food security, access to land-based resources, and social assets – revealing that distributional effects are crucial to evaluating the outcomes of biofuel production across these dimensions. Second, we ask how well selected biofuel governance mechanisms address livelihood and equity concerns. Third, we draw insights from literature on non-energy agricultural value chains to provide one set of ideas for improving livelihood outcomes. Our analysis demonstrates that biofuel policies treat livelihoods as a second-degree problem, specifying livelihoods as an afterthought to other goals. We suggest integrating livelihoods into a multi-criteria policy framework from the start – one that prioritizes equity issues as well as overall outcomes. We also show that the instruments with strongest provisions for safeguarding livelihoods and equity appear least likely to be implemented. Together, shifting both the priorities and the relative hierarchy of biofuel governance instruments could help produce strategies that more effectively address livelihood and equity concerns.

Why are there cattle in the conservation area? Social barriers to biofuel governance in Brazil

Amid a rapid expansion of global investments in biofuels there has been an equally rapid proliferation of concerns about the inadequacies of current governance schemes to mitigate the environmental impacts of growing agroenergy production. Managing the land use practices of small producers in a way that ensures their activities are financially and environmentally sustainable is a particularly pressing issue that has been overlooked in research on biofuel governance. I illuminate these challenges through an ethnographic study on the multiple breakdowns of environmental governance in the Southern Goiás region of Brazil, a major expansion region for sugarcane ethanol production. I focus on one of the most pressing compliance issues among small and medium size sugarcane farmers; their persistent use of federally mandated conservation areas for cattle production. I find that while these transgressions are often perceived by administrators and officials as being the result of a lack of “environmental awareness” among rural farmers, they are better understood as a safety net to protect landowners against perceived risks of sugarcane production. These violations are further enabled by continuing ambiguity in the enforcement structure for conservation legislation in the region. Recalibrating regulatory systems to better address these issues of accountability and risk is a critical step toward improving environmental governance of global biofuel commodity chains.

Too difficult to govern? An assessment of the governability of transport biofuels in the EU

Transport biofuels are currently the subject of heated debate in the EU. In the past decade the deployment of these technologies has been justified by claims of attractive environmental, geopolitical and rural development benefits. However, expectations have rapidly turned into deep criticism regarding the sustainability of these technologies and the desirability of pursuing the biofuel path. This situation has generated an on-going controversy and policy deadlock at EU level. This study explores these issues from a governance perspective. Employing the concept of system governability, derived from interactive governance theory, it attempts to shed some light on the problems facing the governance of biofuels and on how the quality of the governance system could be improved. The analysis showed that the governability of the system decreased substantially in the period 2003–2012 due to increasing governing needs and decreasing governing capacity. The quality of the governance system can be improved by (i) improving governing capacity by reducing conflicts among governing actors, advancing consistency among institutions and creating capacity at international and global level; and (ii) promoting advanced technologies and adjusting societal ambitions and expectations regarding biofuels.

Orchestrating sustainability: The case of European Union biofuel governance

AbstractThis article provides an empirical analysis of orchestration – that is, the initiation, support, and embracement of private governance arrangements through public regulators – in the field of European Union biofuel governance. It examines the emerging sustainability regime and shows that orchestration has been extensively practiced. Regulators in the European Union have used a range of directive and facilitative measures to initiate and support private biofuel certification schemes and to incorporate them in their regulatory frameworks. This has given rise to a hybrid regime in which public and private approaches are closely intertwined. Discussing the benefits and complications of engaging with private biofuel sustainability governance, the article's findings point to a partial failure of orchestration in this policy area.