Constructing Sustainable Biofuels: Governance of the Emerging Biofuel Economy

Abstract

In recent decades, new modes of governance have emerged in which an array of non-nation-state actors (NNSAs) drive norms and behaviors related to the production and consumption of goods and services with potentially large environmental and social impacts. These modes of governance are evident in the governance of biofuels, where intergovernmental organizations, national and subnational governments, corporations, and civil society organizations have recently developed an array of standards, metastandards, and codes of conduct attempting to define the conditions in which crops can be grown, processed, and used as fuel. Although the field is populated by dozens of efforts, a few binding state-sponsored regulations appear to dominate the major markets for biofuels in the United States and European Union. Nevertheless, existing regulations were heavily influenced by NNSAs. Further, several state-derived modes of governing take the form of metastandards that permit standards developed by NNSAs to be used in their place, resulting in a hybrid system of state and nonstate governance regimes. The regimes taking shape attempt to minimize the negative impacts of biofuel production in numerous ways; for example, by introducing penalties for production associated with direct and indirect land use change, crediting for the coproduction of livestock feed, and encouraging biofuel production on marginal lands. However, these issues are plagued by contradictions, raising questions about how sustainability is defined and assessed in the context of biofuel governance.

En décadas recientes, han surgido nuevas formas de gobierno en las que una serie de actores no nacionales o estatales (NNSAs, acrónimo en inglés) manipulan las normas y conductas relacionadas con la producción y consumo de bienes y servicios capaces de generar impactos ambientales y sociales potencialmente grandes. Estos tipos de control son evidentes en lo que concierne a biocombustibles, caso en el que recientemente organizaciones intergubernamentales, gobiernos nacionales y sub-nacionales, corporaciones y organizaciones de la sociedad civil han desarrollado una serie de estándares, metaestándares y códigos de conducta con los cuales intentan definir las condiciones como se debe hacer el cultivo de las cosechas, procesarlas y usarlas como combustible. Aunque este campo está repleto de docenas de esfuerzos, unas cuantas normas obligatorias patrocinadas por el Estado parecen dominar los mercados más importantes de biocombustibles en Estados Unidos y la Unión Europea. No obstante, las reglas existentes fueron fuertemente influenciadas por los NNSAs. Más todavía, varios tipos de control de origen estatal toman la forma de metaestándares que permiten el uso de estándares desarrollados por los NNSAs, lo cual desemboca en un sistema híbrido de regímenes de gobierno estatal y no-estatal. Los regímenes que ya están consolidando su forma intentan minimizar los impactos negativos de la producción de biocombustibles de muy diversas maneras; por ejemplo, estableciendo castigos por la producción asociada directa o indirectamente con cambios en el uso del suelo, o dando crédito apropiado por la coproducción de concentrados para los animales y estimulando la producción de biocombustibles en tierras marginales. Sin embargo, todas estas cosas están plagadas contradicciones que inducen a cuestionamientos sobre la manera como se define y evalúa la sustentabilidad de en el contexto del manejo de biocombustibles.

Keywords:

• biofuels
• environmental governance
• land use change

关键词:

• 生物燃料
• 环境治理
• 土地利用的变化

Palabras clave:

• biocombustibles
• administración ambiental
• cambio de uso del suelo

Notes

1. The polarized sentiments about biofuels are too numerous to review, but a sample of the most negative include “Biofuels Threaten ‘Billions of Lives”’ (Smith and Elliott 2008) and “Will Biofuels Trigger Genocide?” (Zeigler 2008), whereas the most positive include “As the Saudi Arabia of Ethanol, Brazil Leads by Example” (Harris, Kite-Powell, and Lyle 2009) and “Ethanol Facts” (RFA 2010a).

2. Support for farms in the industrial North is substantially different from efforts in the global South.

3. There is a rich literature exploring and critiquing the notion of sustainability. See, for example, Lele (1991), Williams and Millington (2004), and Sneddon, Howarth, and Norgaard (2006).

4. Space does not permit a description of standards or their characteristics. For a thorough overview, see van Dam, Junginger, and Faaij (2010).

5. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for directing me to Hysing's contributions.

6. I am grateful to a reviewer who suggested the link between consumers and civil society. Civil societyparticipation in biofuel governance is evident from membership lists of the RSB, RSPO, and RTRS, among others (RSPO 2009; RTRS 2009; RSB 2010).

7. Carbon credits are an exception, which must also demonstrate emission reductions.

8. Estimates by the author under a separate project (German, Bailis, and van Gelder 2010).

9. Compare the RSB principles for social impacts to those of the EU or United Kingdom (European Council 2009; RFA 2009; RSB 2010).

10. The EPA estimated the iLUC component of GHG emissions resulting from the implementation of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard by linking FASOM, a partial equilibrium forestry and agriculture model, with an general equilibrium model from the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, plus two soil nutrient cycling models (CENTURY and DAYCENT), and an LCA model for transportation (GREET; U.S. EPA 2010).

11. U.S. corn-based ethanol is still disallowed by California (CalEPA Air Resources Board 2009), which uses different models to calculate iLUC emissions, prompting the U.S. ethanol industry to sue the state (Guerrero 2010).

12. Jatropha is a perennial shrub with an oil-rich seed promoted as a promising biofuel crop because of its ability to survive in arid conditions and poor soils (Jatropha Alliance 2009).

13. At the time of writing, more than 600,000 ha had been allocated (Sulle and Nelson 2009).

14. Tropical shrublands can contain sixty to eighty tons of dry matter per hectare. Land under annual crops typically holds five tons of dry matter per hectare and tends to lose soil carbon over time as a result of tillage (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2003).