Abstract
In 2013, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) finalized and published its Council Recommendation on sustainability assessment of biobased products. The governing body of the Council has the power to adopt Decisions and Recommendations, usually referred to as “the OECD Acts.” These Acts are the result of the substantive work carried out in the organization's committees. They are based on in-depth analysis and reporting undertaken within the Secretariat and cover a wide range of topics. The end products include international norms and standards, best practices, and policy guidelines.
Council Recommendations are not legally binding, but practice accords them great moral force as representing the political will of Member countries, and Member countries are encouraged to do their utmost to implement fully a Recommendation. They are among the higher and rarer forms of instruments issued by the OECD. To date, some 188 Council Recommendations have been issued since 1961.
Council Recommendations are short documents written in a general manner to facilitate understanding and interpretation, given the diversity of different OECD Member countries. Their development is a careful, iterative process that involves dialogue with the Member countries over extended periods in an attempt to achieve consensus. In November 2008, the Task Force on Industrial Biotechnology (TFIB) proposed the development of OECD Guidelines (Principles and Best Practices) for the assessment of the environmental and economic sustainability of biobased products and processes.
Editor's Note:
The complete OECD Council Recommendation is available at
To begin the process, the OECD Secretariat developed an issues paper for discussion at a workshop held in Montreal, Canada, in July 2009. Following further research and informal discussions with experts, draft broad principles were submitted to an OECD discussion panel on the development of strategies for measuring the sustainability of biobased products, held in Washington, DC, in June 2010. Participants on the panel confirmed the need to develop the principles further and discussed their scope. Participants also welcomed the development, based on such principles, of an OECD instrument—a Recommendation of the Council that would help governments develop strategies for measuring the sustainability of biobased products. Following up on the Montreal workshop and Washington discussion panel, a first draft Recommendation was reviewed by the Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy (CSTP) in March 2011, and by the TFIB in April 2011.
This initial review was followed by a public consultation process designed to solicit input on the draft Recommendation from a broad range of internal and external experts in the field. It was posted on the OECD website for broader public consultation. By accessing this website, interested parties had the opportunity to provide comments electronically on the texts. Concurrent with the posting of texts on the website, comments were solicited from national professional organizations and other relevant stakeholders. An electronic package was sent to approximately 250 sources. Received comments were subsequently collated and revisions made to the Recommendation.
After further review it was approved by the CSTP for transmission to Council in April 2012. It was subsequently approved for publication by the OECD Executive Committee in July 2012. A print version appeared in mid-2013.
For the Council Recommendation on Assessing the Sustainability of Bio-Based Products, two definitions are pertinent. A “bioeconomy” is an economy in which the basic building blocks for industry and the raw materials for energy are derived from plant/crop-based (i.e, renewable) sources, and biotechnology is used to produce a range of goods and services. “Biobased products” are commercial or industrial goods (other than food or feed) composed in whole or in significant part of biological products, forestry materials, or renewable domestic agricultural materials, including plant, animal, or marine materials. These are products developed from biological materials, with the intent of replacing or enhancing products derived from non-renewable resources. The term “biobased product” encompasses biobased chemicals, biobased plastics, enzymes, biobased materials, and biofuels.
The general recommendations to the Members are as follows: 1. Develop and implement national frameworks for assessing the sustainability of biobased products that take into consideration their environmental, economic and social impacts throughout the whole life cycle of biobased products (cradle-to-grave). 2. Build consensus amongst relevant stakeholders in developing sustainability assessment frameworks for biobased products. 3. Ensure the international consistency of approaches; use a life cycle approach to measure the sustainability of biobased products, where possible; and compare with substitute non-biobased products. 4. Facilitate the development and adoption of assessment methodologies for biobased products that are science-based, broadly accepted, flexible, and verifiable; these methodologies should allow for comparisons between various products and production options, including non-biobased equivalents, in order to minimize the possibility of generating trade barriers. 5. Facilitate the development and adoption of international sustainability indicators for biobased products that are science-based, unambiguous, and validated. These should take into account factors such as: i. Energy balance, including non-renewable and renewable energy use; ii. All greenhouse gas reduction over product life cycles; iii. Biobased content as an indicator of renewability; iv. Anticipated product life; v. Water and solvent use during the different stages of production, and impacts on biodiversity during feedstock production and subsequent processing; vi. Direct and indirect land use for feedstock production; vii. All aspects of end-of-product life; viii. Conventional as opposed to alternative biobased production economics; ix. Impact on human and environmental health. 6. Develop and implement effective and efficient third party peer review of the sustainability assessments of biobased products, as appropriate, and compare with non-biobased products. 7. Collect and make public appropriate data relevant to the sustainability assessment of biobased products to enhance transparency and to facilitate the development of assessment methodologies for evidence-based decision-making. 8. Promote awareness of the sustainability aspects of biobased products and facilitate and encourage the timely provision of balanced and relevant information on the sustainability aspects of biobased products. 9. Enhance collaboration with non-Members and assist them in the development and implementation of principles for assessing the sustainability of biobased products. 10. Provide, through the public authorities of Members at various levels, support to SMEs involved in biobased production and assessments of the sustainability of biobased products.
The Council Recommendation can be found at: