Renewable Fuels Agency

The Renewable Fuels Agency (RFA), a Government Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB), is an independent regulator. It was established on 26 October 2007 to oversee the implementation of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO).

The RTFO applies across the whole of the UK. Refiners, importers and any others who supply more than 450,000 litres of fossil-based road transport fuel annually to the UK market are obligated by it. The initial requirement was for 2.5 per cent of the fuel supplied for road transport in 2008-9 to be biofuel. Since then it has risen to 3.23 per cent and will continue to rise up to 13 per cent by 2020.

The Renewable Fuels Agency (RFA) requires biofuel suppliers to submit reports on both the net greenhouse gas savings and the sustainability of the biofuels they supply. This reporting framework is intended to be a ‘stepping-stone’ towards a mandatory assurance scheme proposed by Government to commence in 2010 and 2011.

Despite a lot of controversy surrounding the use of biofuel in road transport, the UK government decided to go ahead and make it compulsory to use the fuel. Concerns over indirect affects of biofuel production lead to the comission of the Gallagher Review, which published in July 2008, designed to address concerns that biofuel use was affecting food prices, causing carbon emissions through change in land use and destroying natural habitats to accomodate them. The review concluded that

The key conclusions of the Gallagher review are as follows:

1. The introduction of biofuels should be slowed until effective controls are in place to prevent land use change and higher food prices.

2. There is a future for a sustainable biofuels industry but creating the policy right framework is challenging and will take time.

3. Current policies, if left unchecked, will reduce biodiversity and may even cause greenhouse gas emissions rather than savings. More caution and discrimination are needed in the feedstock used to produce biofuels.

4. Increasing demand for biofuels contributes to rising prices for some food commodities, notably oil seeds, that has a detrimental effect on the poor.

5. Biofuels production must target idle and marginal land, and the use of wastes and residues. This will avoid indirect land use change and reduce competition with food.

6. Specific incentives are needed to encourage advanced technologies that utilise feedstock grown on idle and marginal land.

The RTFO was slowed and reduced in line with recommendations of the review. However critics argued it wasn’t enough to stop the detrimental effects of biofuel use.  For one thing, the Gallagher Review had significantly mis-calculated the carbon payback figures for land use change, which in turn lead to the Gallagher review addendum published later in July 2008. Despite some sizeable under-estimates made in the original review, the RFA did not amend its recommendations for the RTFO biofuel use levels.

Additionally fuel suppliers are still not fully reporting the sources or sustainability of their biofuel meaning that despite the RFA’s call to source biofuel from environmentally sound sources, the organisation cannot be sure that the fuel companies are compliant. This is set to change in 2010, however when it becomes compulsory for fuel suppliers to report full details on the fuels they use.

Environmental groups in the meantime are concerned about the use of some biofuel sources. Palm oil sourced from Indonesia has been linked to the destruction of rainforest to make way for plantations. Sadly, it is cheaper to buy palm oil from unsustainable sources than from accredited farms, therefore it will be very attractive to fuel companies to use such oil.

http://www.renewablefuelsagency.org/