Online Biofuel Sustainability Self-Assessment Tool

A team of researchers from the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA), the Swiss Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB) and Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft (HTW) Berlin, Germany, recently developed an online tool that would let biofuel stakeholders or any interested party to assess the sustainability of biofuel production.

The new online tool, which took about two years to develop and was supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), allows users to perform three different functions: (1) Self-assessment of biofuel production against the principles and criteria of the RSB, (2) Risk Assessment in biofuel production, and (3) Calculation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of biofuels for each life cycle production step (i.e. from farming to final fuel distribution) using various methodology. The RSB Standard, which is used in the first function of the tool, comprises 12 principles and criteria for sustainable biofuel production, including environmental and social principles such as food security and human and labor rights. By allowing a risk assessment of biofuels production and an evaluation based on the RSB sustainability principles, the tool serves as a starting point in obtaining a RSB sustainability certification.

The online tool can be accessed at the EMPA website (URL above). An English language option is available at the top link of the EMPA webpage.