The development of sustainability requirements for aviation biofuels

Sammanfattning: Interest in biofuel use is growing in aviation, due to its potential for lower GHG lifecycle emissions and as a possible price competitive alternative to fossil fuels in the long-term (ATAG, 2012). While the use of biofuels in aviation is a new phenomenon, compared to the automotive industry, several actors from the industry and governments have been involved in various initiatives to research, test and use such fuels. Aviation represents a special case, because it can only rely on liquid fuels as an energy source in the mid-term and also because it has not only local but international implications of biofuel governance also. This paper studies using transition theory how the different stakeholders in aviation contribute to the development of sustainability requirements for aviation biofuels and in which areas consensus has been achieved and what future challenges lie ahead. Information has been gathered from relevant literature about how the biofuels are perceived among different entities in the field, which were complimented with expert opinions engaged with aviation biofuels. The literature studied and the opinions gathered indicate the consensus on basic sustainability requirements, however new technologies of biofuels and their impacts are not fully known to stakeholders at this point. It has been indicated that consensus on sustainability requirements would be beneficial at a macro level, but is difficult to achieve due to different government standards and research initiatives occurring at a meso level. Rigorous voluntary biofuel standards are inefficient without government intervention to increase sustainability requirements for biofuels in legislation, while further research is needed to fully assess all impacts of biofuels.