Biofuels
Transport
Bob Spink (Castle Point, UKIP)
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if she will make it her policy to revise the carbon sustainability and reporting requirements for biofuels in respect of biodiesel from palm oil grown on tropical peatland; and if she will make a statement.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Poplar and Canning Town, Labour)
holding answer
The detail of the reporting requirements under the renewable transport fuel obligation (RTFO) is a matter for the Renewable Fuels Agency (RFA). The RFA has produced guidance on the carbon and sustainability information that is required from transport fuel suppliers, which is available via the RFA's website at:
The Government have encouraged transport fuel suppliers to source biofuels produced from feedstocks which meet qualifying environmental standards under the RTFO. In order for suppliers to report that their biofuel has met a qualifying standard, they must ensure that its production has not destroyed or damaged large above or below ground carbon stocks, and that it has not taken place on soils with a large risk of significant carbon losses such as peatlands.
At EU level, the UK has been pressing for mandatory sustainability criteria to apply to all biofuels. If adopted in the form currently proposed in the draft renewable energy directive, these would ensure that from around 2010 or 2011 biofuels produced on newly deforested tropical peatland would be ineligible for support anywhere in the EU.