Leaders of Sustainable Biofuels, an industry coalition to promote advanced biofuels, met on Dec. 4 at the European Parliament with Members of the European Parliament, Commission representatives, and stakeholders in Brussels. LSB, chaired by UPM’s Marko Janhunen, is advocating for a strong EU-wide subtarget for advanced biofuels in the context of ILUC directive.

Director Marie Donnelly from the European Commission DG Energy emphasized the role of biofuels. "The 40 percent target of greenhouse gas reduction cannot be achieved without a strong contribution from the transport sector – biofuels will be an essential part of this challenge,” Donnelly said.

The keynote speaker, Member of the European Parliament Nils Torvalds, rapporteur of the ILUC dossier at the European Parliament commented on the need to holistic and long-term approach. “We need to build a bridge from ILUC debate towards 2030 policy of reducing transport emissions. The industry needs long term security,” Torvalds said.

“The industry feels this type of dialogue is essential. We feel there is too little understanding on the opportunities of advanced biofuels. Climate action, energy security and innovation are key topics in the EU today. We want to contribute to the debate by showing that advanced biofuels can play an integral part of Europe’s energy mix and our joint efforts to reduce transport emissions,” stated Marko Janhunen, chair of LSB and vice president at UPM Biorefining.

Several hundreds of millions has been spent in Europe on research to develop technologies for advanced biofuels. As the time is ripe for commercialization of new technologies, investments are not moving forward due to lack of regulatory certainty. “As the rest of the world is moving forward with investments, the US and China in particular, we are shooting ourselves in the foot by not creating the right conditions for investments to materialize,” Janhunen continued.

“The European Parliament has now a great opportunity to move things forward. By promoting the sub-target for advanced biofuels and making it more binding, and also by ensuring that policy measures go beyond 2020, we trust that investor confidence can be gained,” Janhunen concluded.

LSB continues to engage with stakeholders and Members of the European Parliament in particular to promote the opportunities of advanced biofuels.