Suchergebnisse

One of the most heatedly debated aspects of EU's policy on biofuels in recent times concern indirect land use change (ILUC) induced by the production of biofuels. However, when the EU Renewable Energies Directive (RED) adopted in 2008, regulating ILUC was not considered for the time being. Ever since, the fundamental conflicts on biofuels regarding their social and ecological effects crystallize in the debates on ILUC, which is underpinned by the wide range of results of scientific research on the topic. Starting from explaining the concept of ILUC and from conceptual considerations regarding new ways of knowledge production and its use in the policy process, we firstly trace the policy process on biofuels' ILUC with a special focus on the actors and their stances in this context. Subsequently, mainly by document analysis, we give a detailed overview of the research on biofuels' ILUC, focusing on which actors are related to the various ILUC studies and on what the relationship between these actors and the studies' orientations (methodologies, etc.) and outcomes is. The analysis shows how the increase in ILUC research and its characteristics can be related to the societal problems arising from biofuels production, to the actors involved in it, and to their stakes in the issue. This points to the social embeddedness of ILUC research into societal as well as political practices and therefore – at least partly – qualifies it as a new mode of knowledge production. Furthermore, it points to special role scientific evidence plays regarding the policy process on the regulation of ILUC in the EU. In this respect, our observations suggest that, on the one hand, the scientific evidence on biofuels' ILUC as well as the uncertainty and complexity has been well perceived and taken up in the policy process. On the other hand, however, its role has eventually been reduced to an instrumental one, serving to legitimize and rationalize decisions agreed upon elsewhere beforehand.

While initially hailed to be the silver bullet for tackling climate change, reducing oil dependency and providing an opportunity for rural development especially in poorer regions, severe criticism concerning the environmental and social performance of bioenergy has been raised recently. One potential solution for this problem that is increasingly discussed now is the certification of bioenergy. In the wake of this discussion, a broad range of certification initiatives emerged during the last years. However, this issue is predominantly debated in terms of the environmental implications. Accordingly, governmental approaches to this issue often neglect the need for including social aspects into sustainability principles and criteria, most prominently here the EU Renewable Energies Directive (RED). Non-state voluntary certification initiatives, by accounting for the social implications of increased bioenergy production, could therefore be seen as complementary governance instruments that are able to fill the void left by state regulations in this respect. After briefly addressing the reasons why state regulations tend to neglect social aspects concerning this matter, this paper seeks to explore whether voluntary bioenergy certification schemes could really be able to fulfill these hopes and provide the solution for the missing consideration of social criteria for sustainable bioenergy. And how could these private non-state initiatives do so in a politically and democratically legitimate way? So as to deal with these issues from a scientific perspective, a distinct analytical framework to evaluate the legitimacy of private governance is presented. Based on this framework, five voluntary bioenergy certification schemes are selected and their consideration given to its social dimension is examined. In order to address the characteristics of our conception of non-state legitimacy, the actor constellations behind these certification initiatives are analyzed with a view to determine the structural representation of ...

Was ist die Bioökonomie? -- Sektoren der Bioökonomie -- Definitionen der Bioökonomie? -- Entwicklung der Bioökonomie -- Was sind die Hintergründe für eine Bioökonomie? -- Wie hat sich die Idee der Bioökonomie politisch entwickelt? -- Ziele und Zielkonflikte der Bioökonomie -- Welche Ziele werden mit der Bioökonomie verfolgt? -- Welche Konflikte ergeben sich aus den Zielen der Bioökonomie?. .