EU to phase out damaging soy biofuels

The EU will phase out soy in an attempt to curb the use of biofuels linked to indirect land-use change (ILUC), a significant cause of CO₂ emissions and biodiversity loss, new report findings published by the EU Commission show. With biofuels consumption globally on the rise, the report’s findings demonstrate the deforestation risk of promoting food and feed crops for fuel, says T&E.

Cian Delaney, biofuels campaigner at T&E, said: “Soy biofuels are twice as bad for the planet as fossil diesel. Phasing them out is the right way to go and ensures that American, Argentinian and Brazilian soy does not end up in European tanks, especially now that the EU has signed the Mercosur trade deal. But other feedstocks associated with high levels of land use change, like sugarcane, remain just below the threshold. This means they can continue to count towards EU renewable targets. Food and feed crop biofuels are a bad idea, it’s time to move beyond burning.”

Biofuels have been widely promoted across the EU since the adoption of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) in 2009. In 2019, the introduction of the high ILUC Delegated Act confirmed a phase-out of palm biofuels by 2030. Soy will now be subjected to the same fate. While this does remove one of the most damaging feedstocks from Europe’s energy mix, growing EU demand for biofuels means that the scramble for feedstocks will still intensify.

More than 100 million tonnes of sugar cane is used in global biofuels production today. This is expected to grow by 50% by 2030. This includes problematic projects in regions like Papua, Indonesia, where clearance of natural forest is already underway to make space for sugarcane cultivation.

The Commission was supposed to publish the revision of the high-ILUC Delegated Act back in September 2023. In the past T&E has voiced concerns that the report was being delayed to avoid stoking trade disputes.