In mid-April, the Nuffield Council of Bioethics, an independent body that examines ethical issues in biology and medicine, launched the report Biofuels: ethical issues. The report focuses on policies, technologies and other drivers that promote liquid biofuels for transport, outlining the ethical challenges that arise in the biofuel production process.
 
The study offers qualitative insights into the core driving forces behind biofuels policies, such as energy security, economic development and climate change. It also illustrates some of the problems that might arise from biofuel promotion through case studies. The authors express concerns about the negative effects of biofuel production can have on the environment, food security and food prices, as well as the human rights of agricultural workers and communities.
 
The report criticises European energy policies for setting high goals that lead to unethical practices. For example, the European Renewable Energy Directive defines that 10% of the transport fuels must come from renewable sources by 2020. But to meet these goals, biofuels are imported from countries without responsible climate policies.

In order to mitigate the ethical risks faced in the biofuels production, the report suggests ethical principles that policy makers must be able to meet to make the promotion of biofuels “permissable”. These guidelines are:

• Biofuels should not be developed at the cost of human rights, such as access to sufficient food and water, health rights, work rights and land entitlements.
   
• Biofuels should be environmentally sustainable. Currently, biofuel production is unlikely to meet this condition for various reasons, including links with the loss of biodiversity due to clearing of forests, grassland and peatlands, and the lack of strict environmental sustainability regulations in many of the countries producing biofuels.
   
• Biofuels should reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This means that the net emissions caused throughout the entire production lifecycle (such as land-use changes, inputs for growing and processing crops as well as distribution) should offer GHG savings.
   
• Biofuels should be developed in accordance with trade principles that are fair and recognise the rights of people to just reward (including labor rights and intellectual property rights).
   
• The costs and benefits of biofuels should be distributed in an equitable way.

The authors recommend establishing a certification scheme to ensure these principles are met, similar to the existing Fair Trade scheme. They conclude that this would “be most effective if… accompanied by elements from regulatory systems, for example financial sanctions, and incentives such as subsidies or assured markets”.

The report also strongly recommends developing new biofuel technologies, such as lignocellulosic and algal biofuels, on the grounds that they could potentially represent more economically viable and climate friendly production, at the same time as using less natural resources.

The full report and a summary of key findings and recommendations is available at the Nuffield Council of Bioethics website.