FEDIOL Statement
Date
21 May 2019
Sections
Agriculture & Food
Brussels, 21 May 2019 – In the absence of objections by European Parliament and Council on the proposed text within the given two-month scrutiny period, the European Commission has published today in the Official Journal the Delegated
Act on the determination of high indirect land-use change-risk feedstock and the certification of low indirect land-use change-risk biofuels.
FEDIOL acknowledges the importance of closing this pending item and providing further clarity on the legislative framework for crop-based biofuels beyond 2020. It also welcomes the shift in the debate around ILUC from the questionable use of standard values to a more complex evaluation of available data and tools to assess the link between the expansion of specific crops and the effects on forest habitat.
The Delegated Regulation supplements the recast of the Renewable Energy Directive published last December and will represent the legal basis to determine what feedstocks bear a high risk of causing ILUC and to define a methodology for low ILUC additional production.
“FEDIOL is a user of multiple feedstocks and shares the underlying objective of sustainability in any policy action, including for the protection and conservation of forests” – stated John Grossmann, President of FEDIOL. “To live up to this goal, the vegetable oil and protein meal industry is actively engaged in initiatives and commitments aimed at removing products at risk of causing deforestation from its supply chains”. A first review of the Delegated Act and the development of a more detailed Implementing Act are already foreseen by June 2021. FEDIOL hopes that sound and robust criteria for low ILUC methodology be established in order to avoid malpractices, while still leaving the possibility to sustainable additional production volumes – even from crops initially defined as high ILUC-risk – to find their way into the EU market.
For further information, please contact Nathalie Lecocq, FEDIOL Director General, at: fediol@fediol.eu or +32 2 771 53 30