Aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, together with some major airlines, has formed a “Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group “ to accelerate the development and availability of sustainable biofuels”. According to Biomass Magazine, the airlines supporting the initiative include Air France, Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways, Cargolux, Gulf Air, Japan Airlines, KLM, SAS and Virgin Atlantic Airways. The group has declared its commitment to advance the development, certification, and commercial use of drop-in sustainable aviation fuels”. The commitment considers four considerations as “minimum criteria” for sustainable aviation biofuels, which “must be addressed by verifiable means”: (1) the production of the aviation biofuel feedstock should not compete with food, and must minimize adverse biodiversity/ecological impacts, (2) throughout its life cycle (i.e., from feedstock cultivation, to harvesting, processing, and end-use), the aviation biofuel should show a net reduction of greenhouse gas emissions compared with conventional (i.e., petroleum-derived) jet fuel, (3) development projects associated with the biofuel should improve socio-economic conditions for small-scale farmers and do not require the involuntary displacement of local populations, and (4) Native ecosystems and “high conservation value areas” should not be cleared and used as plantations for the aviation biofuel feedstock. The Biofuels International website reports that “the group has commissioned two initial studies investigating algae and jatropha-sourced biofuels life cycle carbon dioxide emissions and socio-economic impact”..

The global biofuels industry will “reshape the Earth’s landscape in a significant way”, as more nations follow the path toward shaping their own programs for national biofuel industry development. To be better prepared for these changes, it is essential that science-based policies be in place, to guide nations toward a more sustainable biofuels industry. This was the call of a group of scientists, whose views were published in the October 3, 2008  issue of the journal, Science. According to the paper, the emerging global biofuels industry could “require as much land as it is currently for food”. “The identification of unintended consequences early in the development of alternative fuel strategies will help to avoid costly mistakes and regrets about the effects on the environment”. The case of the impacts of harnessing first generation bioenergy crops as biofuel feedstocks were cited. The possible effects of using second generation biofuel feedstocks was also mentioned, including those that still need to be investigated. Details of the paper can be found in the Science journal website (URL above)..