Report on the status of production expansion of relevant food and feed crops worldwide

Summary:

Report published by the European Commission in March 2019 on the sustainability criteria for biofuels and the environmental impact of expansion of the production area of relevant food and feed crops.

Further information:

Directive (EU) 2018/2001 - the so-called Renewable Energy Directive - promotes the development of renewable energy through an EU-wide renewable energy binding target of at least 32% by 2030, to be achieved collectively by Member States. In order to do so, the Directive includes a number of sectoral measures promoting further deployment of renewables in the electricity, heating and cooling and transport sectors. The Directive also reinforces the EU sustainability framework for bioenergy, in order to ensure robust GHG emission savings and minimize unintended environmental impacts. In particular, it introduces a new approach to address emissions from indirect land-use change (ILUC) associated with the production of biofuels, bioliquids and biomass fuels.

In this context, the Directive requires the Commission to adopt Delegated Regulation C (2019) 2055 setting out criteria both for (i) determining the high ILUC-risk feedstock for which a significant expansion of the production area into land with high carbon stock is observed and (ii) certifying low ILUC-risk biofuels, bioliquids and biomass fuels ('low ILUC-risk fuels'). This delegated act is due to accompany this Report on the status of production expansion of relevant food and feed crops worldwide. This report provides information linked to the criteria set out in the above-mentioned delegated act in order to identify high ILUC-risk fuels from food or feed crops with a significant expansion into land with high carbon stock and low ILUC-risk fuels.

Official

European Commission: Fact Sheet, 13/03/2019: Sustainability criteria for biofuels specified http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-19-1656_en.htm

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