Global Bioenergy Perspectives: UK body proposes ethical framework for biofuels

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, an independent British body that examines and reports on ethical issues in biology and medicine, has published a report setting out an ethical framework to guide policy making for biofuels.

The report followed an 18-month study into biofuels – specifically relating to the EU Renewable Directive target that biofuels should account for 10% of transport fuel by 2020.

“This report considers the ethical issues raised by both current and potential future approaches to biofuels development, seeing this as an overlapping continuum, and attempting to influence the trajectory of biofuels development to meet the ethical principles set out in our framework,” stated the report's chair, Joyce Tait, scientific advisor to the Economic and Social Research Council's Innogen Centre at Edinburgh University, in her foreword.

The council concluded that current U.K. and European policies encourage unethical practices and include few incentives for the development of new biofuels technologies.

Instead, it recommended that European and national biofuels targets should be replaced with a more sophisticated target-based strategy that considers the wider consequences of biofuel production. The new strategy should incorporate a comprehensive ethical standard for all biofuels developed in and imported into the EU, enforced through a certification scheme, and based on the following ethical principles:

• Biofuels development should not be at the expense of human rights
• Biofuels should be environmentally sustainable
• Biofuels should contribute to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
• Biofuels should adhere to fair trade principles
• Costs and benefits of biofuels should be distributed in an equitable way

Regulators had an ethical duty to promote any forms of biofuel that meet all principles, the report stated. Among other recommendations, it proposed that:

• the EU should provide financial support and advice to countries that might find it difficult to certify biofuels in this way
• the ethical standard and associated certification scheme should ideally be applied to all similar technologies and products to guide decision-making in a wider policy context
• more research should be carried out on the economic and social impacts of intellectual property related to the development of biofuels
• biofuels policies and future sustainability initiatives should not discourage local, small-scale biofuel production, particularly in developing countries that experience fuel poverty and
• policy makers should incentivise research and development of new biofuels technologies that need less land and other resources, avoid social and environmental harms, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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