Advertising Standards Authority upholds George Monbiot’s complaint and rules that biofuels can only be declared “sustainable” if clear policies are in place to limit impact on food production and deforestation
by Michael Smith
A complaint by environmental journalist George Monbiot that advertisements in the national press by the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) misrepresented biofuels as “sustainable” has been upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) recently.
The ASA ruled that large text at the bottom of the adverts stating referring to biofuels as a “sustainable answer to OPEC's oil” was misleading, and banned the ads from appearing again in their current form.
The Renewable Fuels Association, on the other hand, said it believed biofuels met the Oxford English Dictionary definition of sustainable as “able to be sustained” and “avoiding depletion of natural resources” and argued that the feedstocks commonly used for biofuel production, such as grains, vegetable oils and sugar cane, were renewable, plant-based resources which could be grown and harvested or collected each year.
What the RFA, obviously, does not take into consideration but what the ASA did is the fact that many of those operations of growing the base crop for biofuels cause irreparable damage to the world's environment and to fragile ecosystems. Their hair splitting as to the definition of sustainable and sustainability in the Oxford dictionary also is, in my view, less than helpful.
Instead the RFA went on to say there was considerable evidence to suggest biofuels were not primary contributors to the global food crisis and that it was also not correct to suggest that biofuels were responsible for an expansion of agricultural land into wildlife habitat and the loss of biodiversity.
This evidence is, obviously, from the industry itself in the same way as someone wanted to persuade – for lack of another word – the Green (Living) Review that biofuels were fine and had no impact on the food resources. That particular correspondent also was from the industry.
The organisation cited research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the US Department of Agriculture, which showed that there was significant global capacity to expand agricultural land use without jeopardising land use for forest or other sensitive environmental ecosystems.
The advertising standards authority accepted these arguments but countered that the UK government's Gallagher Review considered biofuel production would result in net greenhouse emissions and loss of biodiversity through habitat destruction in the period to 2020 unless improved policies were put in place to ensure biofuel production targeted idle or marginal land.
The EU is currently working on the development of such land use policies, but the ASA concluded that until they are in place and fully adopted the impact of increased demand for energy crops on deforestation and food production meant it is misleading to refer to them as sustainable.
The other side of biofuels, especially as regards to bio-diesel, is that it is reckoned to be more polluting than the oil-based fuels they are supposed to replace, and this also with regards to the emission of so-called greenhouse gases. And still they are trying to persuade us all that this is the better option.
I must say it is beginning to appear that we are trading the fossil oil lobby for the biofuels lobby and the latter seems to be as bad as the former, if not even getting worse than that.
The problem is that the biofuels lobby, from a variety of sides, is doing a great job at greenwashing and browbeating of people, trying to make everyone believe that they have the environment at heart and are working to ease climate change. Nothing could be further from the truth as far as most of them are concerned. They have a vested interested and that interest is money, at least as far as the big companies are concerned and let's face it, the big petrochemical companies are jumping on the bandwagon and are very vociferous. There is money to be made here and lots of it, and the governments are giving grants for biofuels left, right and center. Nice work if you can get it.
It is my belief that we should look at a completely different alternative to the ICE, the infernal combustion engine, and therefore could do away with the need for such fuels and this ongoing discussion on this matter as to harm or not harm done by biofuels.
Bio-diesel produced from waste cooking oil in one thing or cars run on gas produced from waste, but to actually grow crops that are to be turned into a diesel or a gasoline replacement on land that would be much better used for the growing of foods is not only not sustainable but it is a crime.
Many of the crops that are grown for turning into biofuels in fact are food crops, such as maize, for instance, or sugar cane as well, and sugar cane is being grown in land stolen from the rainforests, the latter which we need so urgently to keep the climate balanced.
The first motorcars were not designed to be run on gasoline, for instance, but on methane gas, and we sure have lots of that.
© M Smith (Veshengro), February 2009
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Biofuels cannot be called sustainable, at least not in British Advert
