Agriculture & Land Management

Our Work

Biomass currently provides a significant proportion of Europe’s renewable energy, but there are questions over the sustainability of this in terms of wider environmental impacts, efficiency of resource use and level of resulting greenhouse gas emission reductions. Delivering environmentally responsible bioenergy requires the consideration of a wide range of interrelated factors, including: existing uses of biomass; direct and indirect land use impacts; understanding waste management and residue use; environmental, social and economic consequences; as well as trade and inter-institutional factors across a wide range of sectors.

IEEP’s work in this area aims to improve the sustainability of bioenergy policies, given that this is an important part of Europe’s future energy policy as well as essential for the resource efficiency agenda.

IEEP takes a multi-disciplinary approach to assessing these complex relationships, focussing on the interconnectivity of impacts across sectors as diverse as food production, waste management, energy and transport. With expertise in agriculture, forestry, economics, energy, trade and environmental policy IEEP is able to take a trans-disciplinary look at bioenergy and its potential role in the future. We were one of the first organisations to raise, at the EU level, the indirect land use change (ILUC) impacts resulting from EU biofuel use, and our work on the carbon debt of bioenergy has helped to increase consideration of sustainability in the use of solid biomass. Our work involves research into the most sustainable means of delivering bioenergy as well as offering advice to EU and Member State law-makers, academics, regulatory authorities, industry and NGOs.

More about our work in this area...

Latest in Bioenergy

  • Ensuring the carbon sustainability of biomass

    Ensuring the carbon sustainability of bioenergy requires a new approach in EU policy. This IEEP report spells out a different pathway to the one proposed by the European Commission in the recently released “winter package”.

  • Biofrontiers – sustainability critical to the development of advanced biofuels

    Adherence to effective and workable sustainability criteria is an essential requirement when using public support to incentivise advanced alternative fuels.

  • Understanding the consequences of changing biomass demand for energy

    Understanding the consequences of increased biomass demand for energy on the environment is central to the development of future policy on renewable energy in Europe. This study seeks to help answer this need by modelling different levels of biomass demand for energy and the consequences for land use and forest based industries.

  • The cascading use of woody biomass in the EU – challenges, opportunities and policy solutions

    Improving the resource efficient use of wood through cascading the resource from one use to another, requires action throughout the wood flow. Current efforts focus on recovering and re-using waste wood but more could be done with the production and utilisation of wood processing residues and improving the balancing between the material and energy use of wood.

  • Mapping study on the cascading use of wood products

    Promoting the cascading use of wood through policy is one approach to improve resource efficiency and increase the overall availability of wood for use in a variety of sectors.

  • Assessing sustainable biomass availability

    Dr. Ben Allen presented IEEP’s views on the sustainable use of biomass at an international conference in Brussels. Understanding the scale of the resource is a key part of determining appropriate policy intervention and ensuring commercial viability.

  • New report: delivering low carbon transport fuels post 2020

    How should EU policy support the transition to low carbon transport fuels post 2020? A new IEEP led report argues that future policies should be differentiated to tailor support towards specific objectives and technologies that offer the greatest potential for a low carbon future.

  • New report is out: delivering low carbon transport fuels post 2020

    How should EU policy support the transition to low carbon transport fuels post 2020? A new IEEP led report argues that future policies should be differentiated to tailor support towards specific objectives and technologies that offer the greatest potential for a low carbon future.

  • How to stimulate a bio-economy based on waste? – A study for the UK Government

    Waste resources have the potential to provide a core component of developing bio-economies across the globe. A new IEEP report reviews how waste has been incorporated into existing bio-economy strategies, and the conditions that have enabled this.

  • Conclusion on ILUC in sight

    After five years of discussion, a landmark moment has been reached whereby the indirect land use change (ILUC) impacts of biofuels almost certainly will be addressed in EU law.

  • Building a high value bioeconomy in the UK: opportunities from waste

    The UK is exploring opportunities to develop a high value bioeconomy based initially on waste. IEEP is helping to identify international best practice examples in order to maximise the environmental and economic benefits of this new Government initiative.

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