Summarising the Call for Evidence responses for 2018 Bioenergy Review

In 2011 the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) published a Bioenergy Review to provide an assessment of the potential role of bioenergy in meeting the UK's carbon budgets. The Bioenergy Review drew on the best available evidence to address questions relating to the sustainability of bioenergy, lifecycle emissions, resource availability and best-use across the economy. It highlighted the importance of bioenergy for meeting the UK's climate change targets and made recommendations for tightening the sustainability standards for bioenergy resources - recommendations that were subsequently adopted by the UK Government.

The CCC is now planning to update its work on bioenergy, culminating in a new Bioenergy Review to be published in Autumn 2018. This will consider the latest evidence to provide an updated view on the role of bioenergy in decarbonising the UK economy through to 2050. Key themes to be explored include sustainability and certification, GHG emissions accounting, developing sustainable supply, non-energy uses of bioenergy resources, and transitions to future best-uses of bioenergy resources. We will identify recommendations for further action and aim to develop indicators to allow the CCC to monitor progress over time.

In December, the CCC published a Call for Evidence, available at: https://www.theccc.org.uk/bioenergy-review-2018-call-evidence/

It is intended to provide all stakeholders with the opportunity to input to the CCC's work and to enable the CCC to draw on the full range of up-to-date evidence relating to bioenergy production, sustainability and use.

The deadline for responses was 5th February 2018. We received 34 responses in total, with links to around 150 pieces of supporting material (because of the overlap between responses, it is not possible to give an exact estimate at this time).

Responders were asked to answer only those questions where they have particular expertise, to focus on peer-reviewed evidence and to limit responses to a maximum of 400 words per question, plus links to supporting evidence.