Briefings about the UK’s biomass greenhouse gas and sustainability standards

Photo: Dogwood Alliance

Biofuelwatch has published a policy analysis briefing about the UK’s biomass sustainability greenhouse gas and sustainability standards, introduced 1st December 2015.  Together with the Partnership for Policy Integrity (PFPI), we have also produced a briefing for MPs about these standards.

Detailed briefing about the standards:

Why the UK’s new Sustainability and Greenhouse Gas standards for Biomass Cannot Guarantee sustainability or low carbon impacts

Joint briefing about the standards for MPs (Biofuelwatch and PFPI):

Why the UK’s new Sustainability and Greenhouse Gas Standards for Biomass still allow biomass to pollute more than coal

Summary and Conclusions:

The UK’s biomass [i] sustainability and greenhouse gas standards are ineffective and contradict the principles of the UK Bioenergy Strategy 2012, as well as scientific findings published by DECC and evidence about biomass greenhouse gas emissions contained in a large number of peer-reviewed studies.
Furthermore, they rely on self-reporting which is open to fraud as well as inadvertent misrepresentations. This problem could only be overcome with a well-funded new regulatory body with relevant expertise, something the Government has never proposed.

Biofuelwatch believes that ending subsidies for biomass electricity is the only feasible way of avoiding high carbon emissions and forest destruction due to the UK demand for bioenergy.