Rocio A. Diaz-Chavez

Community-based renewable energy in the Lake District National Park – local drivers, enablers, barriers and solutions

Diverse communities are often considered to be more stable and productive. To mitigate and adapt to climate change and overcome energy insecurities, international, national and local communities need decentralised alternatives to complement and support traditional centralised energy systems. Policies with top-down targets promote the quick fix rather than the most sustainable scheme, and institutional and social barriers inhibit the local action needed to identify, plan and deliver the most valuable and appropriate alternatives. For diversity and sustainability, how can local community-based renewable energy (CRE) schemes be valuable and appropriate alternatives? Interviews and case studies with public, private and community-based stakeholders in the Lake District National Park reveal the drivers, enablers and barriers to CRE schemes. Two solutions designed to catalyse and coordinate local action are proposed: CRE plans and champions. Together from the bottom-up, they help to generate, coordinate and communicate the necessary local knowledge, resources and trust to promote positive data sets on energy capacity, opportunity and need. Thus, planning becomes suitably strategic for achieving sustainable energy futures.

How can land-use modelling tools inform bioenergy policies?

Targets for bioenergy have been set worldwide to mitigate climate change. Although feedstock sources are often ambiguous, pledges in European nations, the United States and Brazil amount to more than 100 Mtoe of biorenewable fuel production by 2020. As a consequence, the biofuel sector is developing rapidly, and it is increasingly important to distinguish bioenergy options that can address energy security and greenhouse gas mitigation from those that cannot. This paper evaluates how bioenergy production affects land-use change (LUC), and to what extent land-use modelling can inform sound decision-making. We identified local and global internalities and externalities of biofuel development scenarios, reviewed relevant data sources and modelling approaches, identified sources of controversy about indirect LUC (iLUC) and then suggested a framework for comprehensive assessments of bioenergy. Ultimately, plant biomass must be managed to produce energy in a way that is consistent with the management of food, feed, fibre, timber and environmental services. Bioenergy production provides opportunities for improved energy security, climate mitigation and rural development, but the environmental and social consequences depend on feedstock choices and geographical location. The most desirable solutions for bioenergy production will include policies that incentivize regionally integrated management of diverse resources with low inputs, high yields, co-products, multiple benefits and minimal risks of iLUC. Many integrated assessment models include energy resources, trade, technological development and regional environmental conditions, but do not account for biodiversity and lack detailed data on the location of degraded and underproductive lands that would be ideal for bioenergy production. Specific practices that would maximize the benefits of bioenergy production regionally need to be identified before a global analysis of bioenergy-related LUC can be accomplished.

Status and prospects for renewable energy using wood pellets from the southeastern United States

The ongoing debate about costs and benefits of wood‐pellet based bioenergy production in the southeastern United States (SE USA) requires an understanding of the science and context influencing market decisions associated with its sustainability. Production of pellets has garnered much attention as US exports have grown from negligible amounts in the early 2000s to 4.6 million metric tonnes in 2015. Currently, 98% of these pellet exports are shipped to Europe to displace coal in power plants. We ask, ‘How is the production of wood pellets in the SE USA affecting forest systems and the ecosystem services they provide?’ To address this question, we review current forest conditions and the status of the wood products industry, how pellet production affects ecosystem services and biodiversity, and what methods are in place to monitor changes and protect vulnerable systems. Scientific studies provide evidence that wood pellets in the SE USA are a fraction of total forestry operations and can be produced while maintaining or improving forest ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are protected by the requirement to utilize loggers trained to apply scientifically based best management practices in planning and implementing harvest for the export market. Bioenergy markets supplement incomes to private rural landholders and provide an incentive for forest management practices that simultaneously benefit water quality and wildlife and reduce risk of fire and insect outbreaks. Bioenergy also increases the value of forest land to landowners, thereby decreasing likelihood of conversion to nonforest uses. Monitoring and evaluation are essential to verify that regulations and good practices are achieving goals and to enable timely responses if problems arise. Conducting rigorous research to understand how conditions change in response to management choices requires baseline data, monitoring, and appropriate reference scenarios. Long‐term monitoring data on forest conditions should be publicly accessible and utilized to inform adaptive management.

Indicators for Socio-Economic Sustainability Assessment

Indicators have been used to organize, monitor and assess information in different contexts. During the last twenty years indicators have gained more importance, being used to assess sustainability performance of different activities through the implementation of standards. This chapter explores the evolution of the use of socio-economic indicators and their applicability in a relatively new production area, that of biofuels. The use of indicators has been more focused on environmental issues and compliance with voluntary schemes. Socio-economic indicators have gained more attention as a result of concerns with production of biofuels in developing countries. A set of indicators is proposed to monitor the possible impacts (both negative and positive). It is suggested that monitoring may help initiatives at national, regional and local level and may be combined with voluntary performance schemes in order to promote a sustainable production of biofuels.

An assessment of the potential of drylands in eight sub-Saharan African countries to produce bioenergy feedstocks

This paper synthesizes lessons learnt from research that aimed to identify land in the dryland regions of eight sub-Saharan African study countries where bioenergy feedstocks production has a low risk of detrimental environmental and socio-economic effects. The methodology involved using geographical information systems (GISs) to interrogate a wide range of datasets, aerial photograph and field verification, an extensive literature review, and obtaining information from a wide range of stakeholders. The GIS work revealed that Africas drylands potentially have substantial areas available and agriculturally suitable for bioenergy feedstocks production. The other work showed that land-use and biomass dynamics in Africas drylands are greatly influenced by the inherent ‘disequilibrium’ behaviour of these environments. This behaviour challenges the sustainability concept and perceptions regarding the drivers, nature and consequences of deforestation, land degradation and other factors. An assessment of the implications of this behaviour formed the basis for the practical guidance suggested for bioenergy feedstock producers and bioenergy policy makers.

Test Auditing of Socio-Economic Indicators for Biofuel Production

The EU funded Global-Bio-Pact project developed a set of socio-economic impact indicators. The purpose was not to create a new standard or scheme for bioenergy production, but to compile a set of socio-economic sustainability criteria and indicators for biomass production and conversion which could be used by developers, governments, nongovernmental organizations or as an aid to existing standards. The set of indicators was tested in two locations in South America, which comprise the two case studies reported in the chapter. The selected indicators are introduced and discussed here, along with an assessment of the results from their application in the field.

Sustainability Considerations for the Future Bioeconomy

It is critical to ensure the sustainability of biomass when used for energy, chemicals, and/or materials in the future bioeconomy. This does not only apply to the feedstock, a common focus within traditional bioenergy assessments; it also needs to consider the wider value chain, that is, from feedstock production through end use, including a range of coproducts, to end-of-life. The scope of such an assessment can vary but may be most practical at the “biorefinery” scale. Experience gained from first-generation biofuels offers lessons about sustainability challenges and prospects for the future bioeconomy. However, sustainability assessments of bioproducts require unique considerations, some of which are not necessarily addressed in the assessments of biofuels. We find that sustainability assessments are not “one-size-fits-all” and should engage stakeholders in determining clear goals and objectives for the assessment, consider the specific context, and maintain transparency in approach and assumptions. Sustainability is also not a steady state or fixed target. Sustainability assessments are most useful when they help decisionmakers and technology developers make continuous improvements across social, environmental, and economic dimensions. In addition to the traditional three-pillar approach, good governance is of equal importance and has to be implemented in sustainability assessment frameworks. As such, methodologies must continuously evolve to accommodate the increasingly diverse range of biomass-derived products within the future bioeconomy.

Keynote Introduction: Sustainability Considerations for Biofuels Production in Africa

Different drivers have been identified for the promotion of bioenergy crops in both developed and developing countries. The interest in bioenergy projects and biofuels has been driven by a combination of factors, but primarily by initiatives on climate change to reduce GHG, to reduce dependency on oil fuels and by the potential for socio-economic development. At the same time this has led to an increasing concern with the wider implications of biofuels production, particularly if grown at large-scale. Such concerns include environmental sustainability, green house gases (GHG), land use changes and impacts on food prices. Verification systems offer a possibility to assure sustainable production, but have not fully addressed the perception of communities and the effects at different scales. This chapter focuses on sustainability considerations in Africa for bioenergy crops, the certification and verification implications and what is seen regionally as good practice.

Biorefinery Sustainability Analysis

This chapter deals with sustainability analysis of biorefinery systems in terms of environmental and socio-economic indicators . Life cycle analysis has methodological issues related to the functional unit (FU), allocation , land use and biogenic carbon neutrality of the reference system and of the biorefinery-based system. Socio-economic criteria and indicators used in sustainability frameworks assessment are presented and discussed. There is not one single methodology that can aptly cover the synergies of environmental, economic, social and governance issues required to assess the sustainable production and use of bioenergy systems. The perfect metric for environmental issues is not yet established and some researchers prefer to avoid high levels of uncertainty in life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology and adopt more physically quantifying methods like the annual basis carbon (ABC) method presented here. In addition to establishing the perfect metric, there are three types of uncertainty when building scenarios with biorefinery-based systems that must be regarded to have a more holistic point of view. This uncertainty is at the level of the concept , of the configuration and of the operation .

Towards the Development of a European Bioenergy Trade Strategy for 2020 and Beyond (BioTrade2020plus Project)

In Europe the demand of biomass for the whole bioeconomy is increasing year by year. In some cases, this biomass come from non-European countries. The EU is already a net importer of biomass for bioenergy and imports could be even more relevant in the near future. Therefore, it is important to guarantee that this biomass supply from outside the EU is being done in a sustainable way and that negative environmental and socio-economic impacts are minimised. The project BioTrade2020plus has the aim of providing guidelines for the development of a European Bioenergy Trade Strategy for 2020 and beyond. It has analyzed in depth the role of lignocellulosic biomass (woody resources, agricultural residues and cellulosic crops) imports from six selected sourcing regions: North America (Southeast United States), South America (Brazil, Colombia), East Europe (Ukraine), Southeast Asia (Indonesia) and East Africa (Kenya). It has considered availability and sustainability constrains as well as existing strategies in these sourcing regions. All this info is being integrated in an interactive tool available on the BioTrade2020plus webpage.