INDUSTRIAL BIOTECHNOLOGY: Can you discuss the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials' (RSB's) charter and how it expects to further the development of a biomaterials industry?
Rolf Hogan: RSB is basically a global community of industry NGOs, UN [United Nations] organizations, and farmers' organizations. Our community is composed of stakeholders from across the bioeconomy who are dedicated to environmental and social sustainability. We have developed a standard with our members that sets out how to develop all types of biomaterials—including those from biobased and fossil waste—sustainably. We offer certification based on that, RSB Standard, as well as advisory services, partnerships and other collaborations. This includes policy advice and engaging in innovative projects with our members and partners. We see ourselves bringing the solutions to the bioeconomy on the sustainability side and making sure it has public and government support going forward to ensure it is developing effectively.
IB: Where do you get funding?
Hogan: We have a diversity of sources and generate a lot of our own income through certification, licenses fees, membership fees, and advisory services. We also have projects we are working on with partners like Boeing and with various foundations and governments which support our work with grants for specific projects. And we also have support from certain foundations in United States like the Packard foundation and Climate Works, which is foundation based in California.
IB: What are the most challenging aspects to developing the bioeconomy?
Hogan: I guess the issue that we come up against most frequently is the difference in the effectiveness and robustness of various approaches to sustainability. For example, some approaches will only look at greenhouse gas reduction, and others feel that if you are using a bio-based product it will be inherently “good” or “sustainable.” But sustainability is a lot broader, and it involves a lot of social and environmental aspects throughout the supply chain. So, at the very beginning, in agriculture, are you managing your soil and water effectively? How have you gotten the land? Was it forested land? Have you taken it from the local community without their consent? And then looking at workers' rights through the supply chain, pollution, and a range of other issues. And all of that is important. So, a big challenge for us is that, at the industry or policy level, there has been a narrower approach that has focused only on a couple of aspects.
Another big challenge for the bioeconomy has been this issue of the use of biomass, but now RSB and I think a lot of others in the industry are looking beyond just biobased sources to other sources of feedstocks, particularly wastes, like waste gasses and waste plastics, etc. But the availability of feedstock, broadly, and its sustainability is an important issue. On the waste side it obviously makes sense—using waste is good for the environment, and it can give additional incentives for the economy, for farmers selling agricultural waste etc. But it is important to verify that what is being sold as a waste is actually a waste. And ultimately for the bioeconomy there is the question of the volume of waste feedstock available for a variety of uses. So, there are limitations.
On the agricultural side, there is increasing restrictions coming on the use of agricultural feedstocks. There are additional requirements coming in, particularly around indirect land use change, where the European Union is trying to incentivize crops that don't require taking new land. That could be through approaches like intensifying production on the same land, using disused land or focusing on using wastes. These are big issues and challenges and even where folks are using agricultural crops and don't have any issues with indirect land use change, there is still a question of availability and having enough feedstock. There are a lot of different sectors essentially looking at the same source of biomass for their product, be it fuel, chemicals, plastics or other products. So down the road we will have increasing competition and that is going to be a big issue.
We've also been doing some work with WWF and Boeing on mapping feedstocks. We did a map at the sub-Saharan Africa level of where agricultural feedstocks for aviation fuel are available and where they are likely to be available for the next 50 years given projected climate change and demographic scenarios. We see this kind of mapping as an important solution to the feedstock issue and one we'd like to develop for other regions and other sectors beyond aviation fuel. These types of analyses, with a cross-sectional approach, could be very interesting.
There are other issues, of course, like the policy environment, which has been a little bit unstable in recent years, especially in the EU. There are also challenges in getting investment. There are also negative public perceptions on sustainability and that is one of the reasons we are here: to give the public confidence that these products are produced sustainably. Certain issues can capture the imagination of the public and policy makers and might influence the viability of certain feedstocks and crops—at RSB we want to ensure that the issues that are being focused on are the rights ones.
IB: Where do you believe bioproducts can make the biggest impact on meeting the sustainable development challenges the world is facing?
Hogan: You know it's an interesting question. Of course, sustainability is broad, and there's a contribution across the board. I think the two biggest issues will be carbon and cities. The biggest impact on carbon will come from moving away from fossil fuels and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I think that's something that certainly appeals to the public imagination when we are dealing with biobased and advanced products and fuels.
Relating to cities, you know there is a major trend towards abandonment of rural areas as farming economies become less lucrative, especially for small farmers. There's movement to cities, turning into mega cities. The projection for the future is that cities will get bigger and bigger. So, the bioeconomy basically provides an opportunity to provide resilience for small farmers and diversify their source of income—even to create small enterprises in rural settings that may have not been there before. So, I think there could be a big impact there. How easy it is going to be to build this depends on what approaches you are taking economically and socially. But it could have a significant impact in the long run in terms of creating more rural economies in around the world.
IB: The theme of your upcoming conference is Grow the Future of Bioproducts. This is a broad but difficult goal. What do you believe will emerge as the top 3–5 action items toward meeting this goal?
Hogan: One item that comes up a lot is around getting the message out on sustainability. As I mentioned, there are different approaches, and some turn out to be not so sustainable—or akin to “window dressing.” On the products and materials side of the bioeconomy, there is a need to avoid the mistakes that have been made in the development of biofuels. There was a huge big public and policy backlash which is still being felt today in that it has limited the amount of production because of fears around food security, land grabbing, etc. Bioproducts are still at a smaller scale of development and are maybe not looking at the same type of incentives to push to scale quickly, but still in the longer term there is a need for the bioeconomy to take care of its own reputation. I think a lot of our members see it is key to get that message out, whether it is to the public or to policy makers.
I think another big one will be the importance of different sectors working together. We very deliberately designed this meeting to include both the fuels and products sides, so we retain our very close connection to the aviation sector, for example. That's really important to us, as the aviation industry has got a lot of experience and learnings to share with other sectors, like shipping, chemicals and plastics, that will be there—and they are very keen to do that. As I mentioned earlier, there is this issue of a limited base of feedstocks that many sectors are looking at. So there needs to be something done to A) estimate what's available properly and B) to understand that there may be different hierarchies of need and priorities for different sectors and regions. Mapping that and supporting different sectors to understand that they are not the only sector looking at waste plastic or used cooking oil or whatever it might be, will help support the planning and roadmaps that are needed to reach scale.
IB: How can policy help or hinder RSB's efforts?
Hogan: On one level, the RSB is independent of policy because we are a voluntary standard, so the company will demonstrate that they are doing the right thing and can get certified. That gives them verification of what they do, whereas policy is meant to level the playing field so there's an improvement in sustainability across the board. So, to some extent that would push us out of the market, but at the same time we have a very strong mission that is not just about promoting certification, but embedding sustainability more generally. We have been working, for example, with the International Civil Aviation Organisation, advising them on the development of CORSIA, the carbon offsetting and reduction system for international aviation. We also work with the EU as well as other governments. But I think that for a lot of these policy initiatives a big thing will be to move beyond greenhouse gases and embrace a broader and more holistic definition of sustainability. So, the EU, which is maybe a little bit better than others, is focusing beyond greenhouse gases, but there are still issues like food security and labor rights that they could take up and look at more strongly and incentivize. I think this will be true for many other policies at the national or global level, but if they could be looking much broadly at sustainability as enshrined in the UN Sustainable Development Goals and would support us in terms of realizing our mission of advancing the bioeconomy.
IB:
How does the marine plastics issue factor into RSB's plans? Is this a solvable issue and how will RSB participate in mitigating its impact? What collaborations do you see developing across supply chains to address the marine litter issue?
Hogan: From the RSB perspective, the niche for us is helping create incentives for using waste plastics and bringing it into fuels or products. At our Assembly in December we will be adopting our revised standard for bioproducts—now called the RSB Standard for Advanced Products—that includes feedstocks from waste plastics. But the bigger question, I guess is about the flow of waste into the oceans. There needs to be a much broader approach to tackle that effectively. Firstly, by incentivizing waste reduction, to reduce total production as much as possible. There also needs to be much better collection and separation of refuse so that plastics go back into a circular economy. This challenge will take collaboration between governments, on one hand, and industry on the other hand. We're willingly part of that big picture but I guess our focus is really on making sure that anything that is produced out of waste plastic from the oceans is A) incentivized and B) truly sustainable.
IB:
What investments in infrastructure and technologies will be required to create a truly circular economy? If you had to guess, how fast will progress be?
Hogan: I think there must be incentives for retailers, producers and consumers, as well as waste management, to start dealing with waste much more effectively. I think it is a question of incentives and legislation to push us all in the right direction to make sure that those feedstocks are available to the industry in a circular economy. In terms of the amount of investment, that is difficult to guess. In some circumstances it might not be so big because it could be more about incentives rather than building new infrastructure or coming up with new technologies, although they will play an important role.
In terms of timelines, we see action happening quite quickly. This is clearly an issue that has captured the public's imagination and there are a lot of commitments being published by the bigger brands, and the biggest polluters. So, I can see it moving quickly in the short term. OECD countries that generally already have quite sophisticated waste management systems in place will likely lead that over the next decade, while for less developed countries it's going to be challenging. They already reuse a lot of waste out of necessity, but it is still going to be a challenge to get that infrastructure into countries in the global South. So, I think we are talking 20, 30 years to get to scale globally.
