This licentiate thesis investigates the decision-making process behind the regulation of winter shipping along the coast of the northern part of Sweden, the Norrland region, in the period 1940-1975. The licentiate thesis examines two aspects of this decision-making process. First, how the regulations in the field of winter shipping were designed in the period. Second, this work examines the underlying factors behind this regulatory outcome on the premise that the regulatory design in the field was the result of an interaction between the regulating actors in the government and their political and economic institutional context. As for the first issue, it is demonstrated that the period 1940-1975 was characterised by a regulatory ambition to expand winter shipping along the coast of Norrland. This meant that the government made substantial investments in ice-breakers during the period, which gradually expanded the shipping season until the target of year-round shipping even to the northernmost ports was established in the first part of the 1970s. Accordingly, those dues for ice-breaker services proposed by several committees that investigated the issue were never introduced. Instead, government-led ice-breaking has served to compensate Norrland as a peripheral region for its relatively high transport costs. Regarding the second issue, it is showed that the decision-making process was influenced by developments at different policy levels of the government hierarchy. In the period 1940-1964, when a public authority within the maritime sector emerged and was consolidated, developments at the maritime sector level affected the decision-making process to a large extent. In turn, the period after 1964 witnessed a change in government policy towards the Norrland region as a more interventionist regional and industrial policy than earlier was implemented. This meant that the decision-making process to a larger extent was influenced by factors originating from a macro policy level. During the decision-making process, actors at both the maritime sector level and the macro level emphasized the importance of government-regulated winter shipping for the regional industrialization of the Norrland region in terms that reflected the aims and interests of their policy levels. In this respect, actors in the maritime sector pointed to the role of winter shipping as a trade policy instrument while actors who represented the interests of regional development policy and industrial policy considered the expansion of winter shipping as crucial in achieving the general ambition to create a geographically egalitarian welfare state, characterised by high levels of growth and low unemployment.
The aim of this thesis is to understand the decision-making processes concerning ice-breaking along the coast of Norrland, with the specific aim to analyse the activities of regional interest groups in the Norrland region and government agents at different administrative levels at the key stages of the decision-making processes: initiation, drafting and decision-making. The thesis also explores how institutional factors at different administrative levels affected the agents that were involved at those stages of the decision-making processes. As navigation along the northern Swedish coast must negotiate winter conditions which causes ports to freeze over, the government ice-breaking service functions as an instrument to compensate the export firms in Norrland for these constrains. Year-round navigation in the north Swedish coastal waters was achieved through a series of decision-making processes that took place during the period from 1940 to 1975. These decision-making processes are important to study since ice-breaking was an integrated component of the expanding heavy basic industries in Norrland and thereby for the rapidly growing exports during the 1950s and 1960s. This period is the decisive point in the economic history of the Norrland region regarding how the natural resources should be exploited and how exports should be advanced. This study concludes that the decision-making processes were initiated by government agents at different administrative levels. Official investigatory commissions were set up at several occasions to deal with issues related to the government ice-breaker service by the ministries responsible for ice-breaker policy. It is also demonstrated that the decision-making processes concerning ice-breaker investments were initiated by the government boards that were responsible for the operation of the ice-breaker service. In this respect, the study concludes that the government activities during the initiation stages should not be confused as a sign of regional interest group passivity on these issues. The activities of the interest groups during the initiation stages were primarily intended to draw attention to the problems caused by winter to regional shipping, in order to put the issue on the political agenda. As the decision-making processes proceeded into the drafting stages, the participation from regional interest groups was much more significant as the government offered interest groups forums and procedures for structural consulting through various organisational arrangements. The regional interest groups that participated in those arrangements were industrial firms in the heavy basic industries sector. In those cases other regional interest groups participated, they would promote the interests of those firms. As a result, the final drafts from committees and government bodies included arguments that favoured an expansion of ice-breaking to promote the growth of the heavy basic industries in the Norrland region. The analysis of the decision-making stages suggests that a combination of institutional factors at different administrative levels contributed to the outcome of the decision-making processes. One result is that the general aims of macro policy such as trade policy, growth policy and regional development policy were favourable towards an expansion of the government ice-breaker service, which would benefit the export industries in the Norrland region. Another result is that the sectoral organization within the government maritime bodies contributed significantly to the outcome of the decision-making processes. Large-scale planning and operational experimentation was allowed to take place within the ice-breaker service, which convinced the government that ice-breaking and winter navigation was a feasible transport alternative.
In recent years, the notion of the triple helix approach in regional policies has come to represent an important innovation in regional policy making. In the context of industrial policies in Sweden, there are two cases in point. Firstly, "National program for development of innovation systems and clusters in Sweden (Visanu)" and, secondly, the VINNVÄXT program launched by Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems. There is now a broad consensus amongst policy makers and practitioners that the triple helix approach is an effective form of economic governance for promoting economic development. In tandem with this new policy orthodoxy, regional scientists and related disciplines have shown an increased interest in the connection between contemporary structures of economic governance and the ability to create and sustain industrial competitiveness over the past decade. The overall objective of this study to examine the emergence and development of the Stockholm BioRegion-initiative, from being constituted as an informal network to a nonprofit association of regional businesses, academic and public actors in the counties of Stockholm and Södermanland. More specifically, the study is focusing on the process of mobilization amongst different actors (business, academia and public sector) with a stake in the biotech and pharmaceutical sector. One important finding is that the triple helix approach in the VINNVÄXT-program has stimulated the formation of collaborative arrangements comprising key organisations in the biotech/ pharmaceutical sector (e.g. AstraZeneca and Karloniska institutet) as well as public-private partnerships (e.g. Stockholm-Uppsala biotech partnership, STandUP). In the concluding part of the paper, implications for the triple helix approach in metropolitan regions are discussed. The empirical findings in the study draw on field research undertaken during autumn 2004 to midsummer 2005.
The European Union (EU) has for a long time had ambitions to achieve some form of 'Strategic Autonomy', often understood as a capability to conduct security pol- icy independent of the United States. With the EU's Global Strategy (EUGS) from 2016, this objective, albeit without a clear definition, is part of the public EU strat- egy. This new level of ambition places high demands on the independent intelli- gence capacities for the member states as well as for the EU at the collective level. at national level as well as for the EU at the collective level. As the world moves towards multipolarity and the geopolitization of the economic sphere, the ambi- tion for strategic autonomy has a broader meaning, such as the ability to conduct an independent trade policy or to choose a supplier of 5G infrastructure. In light of this, this article aims to analyse strategic autonomy as a security policy objective and the various intelligence needs it raises. We analyse autonomy in three different functions, or areas of application: political autonomy, operational autonomy and industrial and digital autonomy. We will then make an overview of how these needs currently are meet and how additional intelligence capacity could be created.
In this dissertation, the Swedish transport aid constitutes a case study with the aim of empirically testing the presence of institutional path dependency. In New Institutional Economics the concept institutional path dependency is used for analyzing why institutions that do not promote growth are developed even when better solutions are available. In this study, institutional path dependency is defined in the following way: institutional path dependency is when new institutional conditions develop in a way that maintains an economic and social practice within the sector of the economy that the institutional condition regulates. The transport aid was introduced in 1971 and is a part of Swedish regional policy. The transport aid is allocated to certain goods-producing companies in northern Sweden in order to subsidize their cost of transportation. The aim was that these companies would strengthen their ability to compete in markets in southern Sweden and abroad. In order to perform a test of the existence of path dependency, three criteria for path dependence were defined. The first of these criteria is that new institutional conditions arise with a maintained practice within the regulated sector. The second criterion for path dependency is that the institutional condition subsists when there are other alternatives which are better and well-known from the point of view of public economy. A third criterion for path dependency is that an institutional condition is given a new legitimacy when interest groups state new motives for it. The study has shown that a practice from the previous traffic policy has lived on in the institutional condition of the transport aid, through a continued subsidization of the cost of transportation similar to a historical tradition in early railway policy (for example in the Norrland tariff). A relatively large part of the transport aid has in practice been subsidizing transports of relatively unprocessed goods, which was a reason for the criticism that the transport aid received in previous studies. A practice from earlier traffic policy, which entailed leveled costs of transportation, has been difficult to combine in practice with goals from regional policy that have emphasized growth and industrial development. This indicates a path dependent development of the transport aid, since it's practice seems to be related to another "path" than main stream regional policy. Since the transport aid was continuously criticized in parliamentary reports and debates for conserving the economic structure in the support area and for distorting the competition on the transport market, there was probably a certain pressure to change the transport aid or replace it with other measures that were more neutral with regard to competition. This pressure of change was brought to a head in the parliamentary resolution from 1990, when the Government suggested radical changes in the design and organization of the transport aid. The Government bill was however rejected by Parliament, and the transport aid continued in the same form as before. Therefore, the transport aid has not followed changes in regional policy at large, neither with regard to organization nor formal goals, in spite of the fact that both the Government and the officials in the Transport Council (the administrative organization) have urged on an adjustment of the transport aid to fit the general direction of the regional policy at large. If the general direction of the regional policy in the 80s and 90s reflects a more growth oriented economic policy, then the transport aid has resisted institutional change, in spite of the fact that better and more well-known alternatives have existed with regard to promoting growth. The second criterion for institutional path dependency may therefore be considered fulfilled. Interest groups have on several occasions expanded the base for legitimacy of the transport aid by presenting new arguments to support it. One example of expanded legitimacy is that the transport aid was directed towards small and medium-sized companies in the 1980s. Such arguments were not presented when the transport aid was introduced in 1970, but was later emphasized by members of the Center Party and the Social Democratic Party. An interesting aspect of this institutional change is that the new motives also were characterized by ideological preferences for equality, since the transport aid with the help of this change would be able to support small firms in their competition with large firms in the same sector. This supports the assertion that the legitimacy of the transport aid has been derived from informal ideological preferences for equality rather than ideological preferences for growth, though the formal goals for the transport aid have been growth related. The conclusion is consequently that interest groups over time have managed to establish a stronger ideological legitimacy for the transport aid. All three criteria for institutional path dependency can therefore be considered fulfilled in the case of the transport aid. ; digitalisering@umu
"Scientists, engineers, and a free-choice society is a book about control, largely the governing of children and young people in Sweden and the efforts made to persuade them to choose careers—and identities—in science and technology in the period 1950–2000. It is very much part of an interdisciplinary research tradition in which perspectives taken from the history of science and education are combined with theories from the field of governmentality studies. The book begins by describing a new societal problem that confronted Sweden, like so many other Western countries, in the immediate post-war years, namely a lack of engineers and scientists. The period from the outbreak of the Second World War to the mid fifties saw a new appreciation for scientific research and its application in both the military and civilian sectors. With the reconstruction of Europe and the Marshall Plan at its height in the fifties, technology and science became gradually associated with rising industrial productivity and with economic growth in general. By the sixties this had left national employment policy with some markedly pronounced objectives. By the end of the decade, it was obvious that the determination to increase student numbers in science and engineering ran contrary to other political ambitions, and did not sit well with the right of the individual to freedom of choice in education. The attempt to respect people's autonomy while at the same time enabling more of them study these particular disciplines shaped a distinct set of strategies that made up the 'positive exercise of power'—what might also be called liberal governing—in which the main idea was to encourage students to come to science and engineering of their own free will. The book goes on to demonstrate how this strategy of governing through individual autonomy would result in a series of specific measures in the seventies and on, including changes to the curricula and teaching materials, which were matched by activities outside the traditional bounds of learning such as a travelling science shows, advertising campaigns, and the construction of science and technology centres. The book also spells out the sheer reach of this recruitment policy. Many leading figures in Sweden set out to encourage people to become scientists and engineers—these were voices heard not only from government quarters, but also from industry and special interest groups. Scientists, engineers and a free-choice society does not set out to answer the question of how best to set about attracting young people into science and technology; rather, it is concerned with how that question has been answered by others, and what impact their responses have had on power relations between society and the individual, and indeed on the place of science and engineering education in the present. - Naturvetarna, ingenjörerna och valfrihetens samhälle handlar om styrning av framförallt barn och ungdomar i Sverige till att välja naturvetenskap och teknik som utbildning, yrke och identitet mellan åren 1950–2000. Ämnesmässigt befinner sig texten i en tvärvetenskaplig forskningstradition där perspektiv från vetenskapshistoria och utbildningshistoria används tillsammans med teoretisk inspiration från fältet governmentality studies. I boken beskrivs inledningsvis framväxten av en ny samhällelig problembild i Sverige och övriga västvärlden under tidig efterkrigstid, nämligen bristen på ingenjörer och naturvetare. Den period som sträckte sig från andra världskriget krigets utbrott till 1950-?talets mitt hade sett en ny värdering av vetenskaplig forskning och tillämpning, både från de militära och civila delarna av samhället. I samband med återuppbyggnaden av Europa och den pågående Marshallhjälpen sammankopplades teknik och naturvetenskap alltmer med ökad industriell produktivitet men också med ekonomisk tillväxt. Ovanstående utveckling ledde under 1960-?talet till att rekryteringspolitiska målsättningar uttalades allt starkare. I slutet av decenniet blev det uppenbart att viljan att höja antalet studerande i teknik och naturvetenskap kom att kollidera med andra utbildningspolitiska ambitioner, framförallt den om individens rätt till ett fritt val av utbildning. I försöken att på samma gång respektera detta självbestämmande och samtidigt skapa fler studerande inom de ovan nämnda disciplinerna växte strategier fram i formen av ett slags "positiv maktutövning" – vad som också kallas liberalt styre – där den bärande idén var att förmå elever att söka sig till naturvetenskap och teknik av sin egen fria vilja. Boken ger fortsättningsvis prov på hur denna strategi att styra genom individens autonomi frambringade en rad olika specifika påverkanssåtgärder från 1970-?talet och framåt. Bland dessa återfinns förändrade kursplaner och läromedel, men också insatser utanför den traditionella läromiljön, såsom kringresande vetenskapsshower, reklamkampanjer och uppförandet av teknik-? och vetenskapscentra. Vad som också framträder i boken är rekryteringspolitikens bredd. Många aktörer i samhället verkade för fler naturvetare och ingenjörer – inte endast på myndighetsnivå utan även inom näringsliv och bland enskilda intresseorganisationer. Naturvetarna, ingenjörerna och valfrihetens samhälle ger inga svar inte på hur fler ungdomar skall förmås bli intresserade av naturvetenskap och teknik. Snarare handlar boken om hur den frågan besvarats av andra och vilka konsekvenser detta har fått för uppkomsten av nya maktrelationer mellan samhälle och individ, men också för de naturvetenskapliga och tekniska utbildningarnas positioner i samtiden."
There is no doubt now that energy is fundamental to our development. Global energy trends such as higher energy demand and prices, big differences across regions, structural changes in an oil and gas industry increasingly dominated by national companies, the prospect of irreversible climate change, as well as demand for energy security all highlight the need for a rapid transition to a low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign energy system. The search for energy alternatives involving locally available and renewable resources is one of the main concerns of governments, scientists and business people worldwide. As researchers tackle problems according to global trends, an overwhelming body of research focusing on bioenergy in relation to other types of renewable energy might illustrate the role bioenergy has as the most important renewable energy source for the near and medium-term future. Thus, analyzing the amount of existing research, we found that about 50% (4,911 records) of 9,724 renewable energy records available were bioenergy records. We also found that publications on each of the four main sources of biomass (agriculture, forest, waste and other) represent about one quarter of the 4,911 bioenergy records retrieved. Biomass – the fourth largest energy source after coal, oil and natural gas - is the largest and most important renewable energy option at present and can be used to produce different forms of energy. As a result, it is, together with the other renewable energy options, capable of providing all the energy services required in a modern society, both locally and in most parts of the world. Renewability and versatility are, among many other aspects, important advantages of biomass as an energy source. Moreover, compared to other renewables, biomass resources are common and widespread across the globe. The sustainability potential of global biomass for energy is widely recognized. For example, the annual global primary production of biomass is equivalent to the 4,500 EJ of solar energy captured each year. About 5% of this energy, or 225 EJ, should cover almost 50% of the world's total primary energy demand at present. These 225 EJ are in line with other estimates which assume a sustainable annual bioenergy market of 270 EJ. However, the 50 EJ biomass contributed to global primary energy demand of 470 EJ in 2007, mainly in the form of traditional non-commercial biomass, is only 10% of the global primary energy demand. The potential for energy from biomass depends in part on land availability. Currently, the amount of land devoted to growing energy crops for biomass fuels is only 0.19% of the world's total land area and only 0.5-1.7% of global agricultural land. Although the large potential of algae as a resource of biomass for energy is not taken into consideration in this report, there are results that demonstrate that algae can, in principle, be used as a renewable energy source. From all of these perspectives, the evidence gathered by the report leads to a simple conclusion: Biomass potential for energy production is promising. In most cases, shifting the energy mix from fossil fuels to renewables can now be done using existing technology. Investors in many cases have a reasonably short pay-back because of good availability of lowcost biomass fuels. The latter is of course dependant on local incentives, however. Overall, the future of bioenergy is also to a large extent determined by policy. Thus, an annual bioenergy supply covering global energy demand in 2050, superseding 1,000 EJ, should be possible with sufficient political support. Global production of biomass and biofuel is growing rapidly due to the increasing price of fossil fuels, growing environmental concerns, and considerations regarding the security and diversification of energy supply. There are many scenarios that predict a high potential for biomass in the future. There have also been many studies performed in recent decades to estimate the future demand and supply of bioenergy. Overall, the world's bioenergy potential seems to be large enough to meet the global energy demand in 2050. The current stock of standing forest is a large reservoir of bioenergy and in line with the theoretical potential of biomass energy. However, most of the research studies on biomass potentials ignore existing studies on demand and supply of wood, despite the extensive literature and data on the subject. Taking into account data from a variety of international sources, rough estimates of the energy production potential of woody biomass from forestry show that, in theory, the demand for wood fuel and industrial roundwood in 2050 can be met, without further deforestation, although regional shortages may occur. However, the shift in the energy mix requires much more investment in infrastructure, equipment and in some cases R&D. Moreover, a prerequisite for achieving bioenergy's substantially high potential in all regions is replacing current inefficient and low-intensive management systems with best practices and technologies.
The global growth in energy demand continues, but the way of meeting rising energy needs is not sustainable. The use of biomass energy is a widely accepted strategy towards sustainable development that sees the fastest rate with the most of increase in power generation followed by strong rises in the consumption of biofuels for transport. Agriculture, forestry and wood energy sector are the leading sources of biomass for bioenergy. However, to be acceptable, biomass feedstock must be produced sustainably. Bioenergy from sustainably managed systems could provide a renewable and carbon neutral source of energy. Bioenergy systems can be relatively complex, intersectoral and site- and scale-specific. The environmental benefits of biomass-for-energy production systems can vary strongly, depending on site properties, climate, management system and input intensities. Bioenergy supply is closely linked to issues of water and land use. It is important to understand the effects of introducing it as well as it is necessary to promote integrated and synergic policies and approaches in the sectors of forestry, agriculture, energy, industry and environment. Biofuels offer attractive solutions to reducing GHG emissions, addressing energy security concerns and have also other socio-economic advantages. Currently produced biofuels are classified as first-generation. Some first-generation biofuels, such as for example ethanol from corn possibly have a limited role in the future transport fuel mix, other ones such as ethanol from sugarcane or biodiesel made from oils extracted from rerennial crops, as well as non-food and industrial crops requiring minimal input and maintenance and offering several benefits over conventional annual crops for ethanol production are promising. Sugarcane ethanol has greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions avoidance potential; can be produced sustainably; can be cost effective without governments support mechanisms, provide useful and valuable co-products; and, if carefully managed with due regard given to sustainable land use, can support the drive for sustainable development in many developing countries. Sugarcane ethanol - currently the most effective biofuel at displacing GHG emissions - is already mitigating GHGs in Brazil. Jatropha curcas L., a multipurpose, drought resistant, perennial plant has gained lot of importance for the production of biodiesel. However, it is important to point out that nearly all of studies have overstated the impacts of first-generation biofuels on global agricultural and land markets due to the fact that they have ignored the role of biofuel by-products. However, feed by-products of first-generation biofuels, such as dried distillers grains with soluble and oilseed meals are used in the livestock industry as protein and energy sources mitigates the price impacts of biofuel production as well as reduce the demand for cropland and moderate the indirect land use consequences. The production of second generation biofuels is expected to start within a few years. Many of the problems associated with first-generation biofuels can be solved by the production of second generation biofuels manufactured from abundant ligno-cellulosic materials such as cereal straw, sugar cane bagasse, forest residues, wastes and dedicated feedstocks (purpose-grown vegetative grasses, short rotation forests and other energy crops). These feedstocks are not food competitive, do not require additional agricultural land and can be grown on marginal and wasteland. Depending on the feedstock choice and the cultivation technique, second-generation biofuel production has the potential to provide benefits such as consuming waste residues and making use of abandoned land. As much as 97-98% of GHG emissions could be avoided by substituting a fossil fuel with wood fuel. Forest fertilization is an attractive option for increasing energy security and reducing net GHG emission. In addition to carbon dioxide the emissions of methane and nitrous oxides may be important factors in GHG balance of biofuels. Forest management rules, best practices for nitrogen fertilizer use and development of second generation technologies use reduce these emissions. Soils have an important role in the global budget of greenhouse gases. However, the effects of biomass production on soil properties are entirely site and practice-specific and little is known about long-term impact. Soil biological systems are resilient and they do not show any lasting impacts due to intensive site management activities. Land management practices can change dramatically the characteristic and gas exchange of an ecosystem. GHG benefits from biomass feedstock use are in some cases significantly lower if the effects of direct¹ or indirect (ILUC²) land use change are taken into account. LUC and ILUC can impact the GHG emission by affecting carbon balance in soil and thus ecosystem. To understand carbon fluxes in an ecosystem large ecosystem units and time scale are critical. Mitigation measures of the impact of land use change on greenhouse gas emissions include the use of residues as feedstock, cultivation of feedstock on abandoned arable land and use of feedstock by-products as substitutes for primary crops as animal feed. Cropping management is the other key factor in estimating GHG emissions associated with LUC and there is significant opportunity to reduce the potential carbon debt and GHG emissions through improved crop and soil management practices, including crop choice, intensity of inputs, harvesting strategy, and tilling practices. Also a system with whole trees harvesting with nutrient compensation is closely to being greenhouse-gas-neutral. Biochar applied to the soil offers a direct method for sequestrating C and generating bioenergy. However, the most recent studies showing that emissions resulting from ILUC are significant have not been systematically compared and summarized and current practices for estimating the effects of ILUC suffer from large uncertainties. Therefore, it seems to be delicate to include the ILUC effects in the GHG emission balance at a country level. The land availability is an important factor in determining bioenergy sustainability. However, even though food and biofuel/biomass can compete for land, this is not inevitably the case. The pattern of completion competition will e.g. depend on whether food security policies are in place. Moreover, the great potential for uncomplicated biomass production lies in using residues and organic waste, introduction of second generation biofuels which are more efficient in use of land and bioresources as well as restoration of degraded and wasted areas. Agroforestry has high potential for simultaneously satisfying many important objectives at ecosystems, economic and social levels. For example, as a very flexible, but low-input system, alley cropping can supply biomass resources in a sustainable way and at the same time provide ecological benefits in Central Europe. A farming system that integrates woody crops with conventional agricultural crops/pasture can more fully utilize the basic resources of water, carbon dioxide, nutrients, and sunlight, thereby producing greater total biomass yield. Overall, whether food prices will rise in parallel to an increase in biofuel demand will depend, more on trade barriers, subsidies, policies and limitations of marketing infrastructure than on lack of physical capacity. There are plant species that provide not only biofuel resources but also has the potential to sequestrate carbon to soil. For example, reed canary grass (RCG, Phalaris arundinacea L.) indicates the potential as a carbon sink. Harvest residues are increasingly utilized to produce energy. Sweden developed a series of recommendations and good-practice guidelines (GPG) for whole tree harvesting practices. Water has a multifarious relationship to energy. Biofuel production will have a relatively minor impact on the global water use. It is critically important to use low-quality water sources and to select the crops and countries that (under current production circumstances) produce bioenergy feedstock in the water-efficient way. However, local and regional impacts of biofuel production could be substantial. Knowledge of watershed characteristics, local hydrology and natural peak flow patterns coupled with site planning, location choice and species choice, are all factors that will determine whether or not this relationship is sustainable. For example, bioethanol's water requirements can range from 5 to 2138 L per liter of ethanol depending on regional irrigation practices. Moreover, sugarcane in Brazil evaporates 2,200 liters for every liter of ethanol, but this demand is met by abundant rainfall. Biomass production can have both positive and negative effects on species diversity. However, woodfuel production systems as well as agroforestry have the potential to increase biodiversity. A regional energy planning could have an important role to play in order to achieve energy-efficient and cost-efficient energy systems. Closing the loop through the optimization of all resources is essential to minimize conflicts in resource requirements as a result of increased biomass feedstock production. A systems approach where the agricultural, forestry, energy, and environmental sectors are considered as components of a single system, and environmental liabilities are used as recoverable resources for biomass feedstock production has the potential to significantly improve the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of biofuels. The LCA (life cycle analysis) approach takes into account all the input and output flows occurring in biomass production systems. The source of biomass has a big impact on LCA outcomes and there is a broad agreement in the scientific community that LCA is one of the best methodologies for the GHG balance calculation of biomass systems. Overall, maximizing benefits of bioenergy while minimizing negative impacts is most likely to occur in the presence of adequate knowledge and frameworks, such as for example certification systems, policy and guidelines. Criteria for achieving sustainability and best land use practices when producing biomass for energy must be established and adopted. ___________ ¹ Direct land-use change occurs when feedstock for biofuels purposes (e.g. soybean for biodiesel) displace a prior land-use (e.g. forest), thereby generating possible changes in the carbon stock of that land. ² Indirect land-use change (ILUC) occurs when pressure on agriculture due to the displacement of previous activity or use of the biomass induces land-use changes on other lands.
