by Erin Voegele (Ethanol Producer Magazine/Biomass Magazine) The Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials recently released a report reviewing its 2016 activities and highlighting its increased impact and presence in the global renewable fuels industry. The report shows the organization launched a new set of advisory services last year, revised and approved its principles and criteria, added several participating operators and members, and further developed the RSB standard. With the support of the Boeing Corporate Citizenship program and the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs in Switzerland, the RSB also developed a program to support smallholders in several regions around the globe.
The RSB is an independent organization that operates a global certification standard for sustainable biomasterials, biofuels and biomass. It’s monitoring and evaluations (M&E) system focuses on biomass supply chains. According to the RSB, results from the M&E system are used to continually improve the RSB standard, policies, guidance and tools associated with the certification system.
The report recently released by the RSB evaluates these results and compares them to expected short-term, mid-term and long-term impacts it expects to drive through its actions.
According to the report, the RSB standard was used to certify wheat starch, sugarcane, jatropha, used cooking oil, yellow grease, carinata, waste carbon dioxide gas, and camelina in 2014. In 2016, the certification expanded to also include glycerol, coconut, gliricidia, macaúba and solaris tobacco. Product types it addresses includes farnesene, food ingredients, epichlorohydrin, biokerosene, ethanol, vegetable oil and biodiesel.
From October 2014 through December 2016, operators under the program grew from 17 to 20, with sites increasing from 23 to 49. The number of farms certified under the program increased from 166 to 472, spanning a total of 17 countries, up from 14. New countries represented in the RSB system include Tunisia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. READ MORE Download report
↧