Effective carbon accounting is crucial for sustainable biomass investments and ensuring reliable feedstocks. The workshop held on May 28, 2024, in Belo Horizonte gathered 70 experts to build consensus on carbon intensity standards and verification. The workshop exceeded expectations, resulting in a consensus on key statements for carbon and GHG accounting in biogenic production pathways.
Download the presentations:
PANEL 1: Biofuels carbon accounting under different life-cycle assessment methods
Ilkka Hannula
Mateus Ferreira Chagas
Michael Wang
Marília Folegatti
Keith Kline
PANEL 2: How should induced effects (e.g., ILUC) be considered when calculating the carbon intensity of biofuels?
Marcelo Moreira
Renan Novaes
Simone Souza
Pat Gruber
Daniel Lopez
Workshop participants identified many carbon-accounting issues, including:
- Indirect Land-Use Change (ILUC): Unmeasurable and unverifiable, ILUC creates policy challenges and hinders technology-neutral, performance-based systems.
- Credits for Avoided Emissions: Relying on projections and assumptions introduces variability.
- Data Representativeness: Default or averaged values can lead to biased analyses.
- Emission Allocation: While methods exist, transparency and consistency are needed.
- Imbedded Carbon in Feedstocks: Subjective labels can distort markets and incentives.
- Counterfactual Scenarios: Introduce uncertainty; transparent, standard-based documentation can mitigate this.
Workshop participants generated a set of recommendations which emphasize the need for political leadership to address barriers to investment caused by inconsistent approaches for assessing sustainability and GHG/Carbon emissions.
This workshop, as well as the IEA report Carbon Accounting for Sustainable Biofuels, 2024 are part of the Biofuture Platform Action plan 2024.
