Global bioenergy sustainability initiatives and implications for policy making in China

Abstract: With the rapid development of bioenergy, the sustainability issue of bioenergy has aroused more and more attention globally. China is also highly concerned about the sustainable development of bioenergy. But, there are only sustainable principles emphasized by government with no specific criteria and indicators, e.g., avoiding bioenergy competition for food crops and land. Therefore, it is necessary to establish systematic criteria and indicators to provide clear and executable guidelines for the sustainable development of bioenergy in China. Several regions in the world have promulgated regulation framework or certification standard to assure the sustainable production and utilization of bioenergy. Also some international institutions, such as Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO), have published voluntary sustainable standard for decision makers. Therefore, to learn the global experience is a good option to promote the establishment of sustainable requirements in China. The typical sustainable bioenergy initiatives in the world are introduced in the paper, including regulation frameworks, certification standards and voluntary standards without threshold. The key criteria and indicators are reviewed. It is found that although the principles of sustainable development are the same for diverse initiatives, their focuses on environmental, social or economic aspects are different due to their different starting points and goals. The importance of involving greenhouse gas (GHG) emission as a key indicator is analyzed, and the challenges on how to quantify GHG emission are also discussed, such as, the allocation of byproduct's emission and the impact of direct land use change & indirect land use change. The requirements on GHG emission reduction of bioenergy compared to fossil fuel are also reviewed. The supporting role of bioenergy sustainability initiatives for the bioenergy industrial policies is elaborated based on the practices of the EU (European Union) and the United States. And finally, related policy suggestions in China are proposed. The suggestions include: 1) Sustainability requirement (criteria or indicators) of bioenergy should be proposed in Renewable Energy Law and Bioenergy Development Planning in China to guide the direction of industrial development; 2) the criteria and indicators of sustainable bioenergy should be both scientific and implementable with clear goals and focus, and should be selected based on domestic situation; 3) GHG emissions counting methodology of different kinds of bioenergy should be provided by government to facilitate industries to meet the sustainability requirement, and the threshold of life cycle GHG emission reduction of bioenergy needs to be fully discussed with stakeholders and strengthened gradually; 4) priority should be given to aviation biofuels, bioenergy derived from residues and wastes, and systematic sustainability criteria and indictors should be established for other biofuels for transportation use in the near term; and, 5) the industrial policies and research and development funding of bioenergy should be linked with the sustainability requirements, and the policy support should be inclined to the sustainable production and utilization of bioenergy which can meet the requirements.