A comparison of national sustainability schemes for solid biomass in the EU
26 juillet 2016
There are no harmonised sustainability criteria for bioenergy or the sourcing of biomass across the European Union (EU). EU Member States have therefore largely relied on domestic Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) rules to guide the way they source biomass. Some have introduced sustainability criteria to determine whether bioenergy projects are eligible for renewable energy subsidies.
This report Fern compares Member State policies with the European Commission’s (EC) recommended biomass sustainability criteria. We hope it will open and help guide discussion. We welcome comments, corrections and suggestions to help build a picture of what works to ensure biomass production is sustainable.
Recommendations for the EU:
1. Adopt a binding sustainability policy for bioenergy
2. Introduce safeguards that go beyond sustainable forest management
3. Adopt measures to ensure biomass is used in the most efficient way
4. Adopt detailed and ambitious requirements for systems to verify compliance with binding sustainability criteria.