Memorandum submitted by the Sustainable
Development Commission
INTRODUCTION
1. The Sustainable Development Commission
(SDC) is a UK-wide non-departmental public body, reporting to
the Prime Minister and the leaders of the Devolved Administrations.
It is chaired by Jonathon Porritt. The Commission's remit is to
advocate sustainable development across all sectors in the UK,
particularly within Government, review progress towards it, and
build consensus on the actions needed if further progress is to
be achieved.
2. This paper is submitted to the Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs Committee as part of its enquiry into alternative
crops, particularly biofuels. It sets out the SDC's principles
for sustainable development and objectives for sustainable agriculture,
and explores how these relate to biofuel production. This paper
also describes the broad findings of our work on sugar supply
chains, particularly in relation to the use of sugar as an energy
crop.
3. This paper is not intended to present
all the advantages and disadvantages associated with the full
life-cycle of biofuels, and we recognise that there are much wider
issues than those set out below—such as developing the infrastructure
for increased biofuel production and the wider impacts that would
have.
PRINCIPLES FOR
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
4. The SDC's six core principles for sustainable
development are: putting sustainable development at the centre,
as the organising principle for societies; valuing nature and
working within the constraints of the natural world; fair shares
for all; making the polluter pay; good governance and effective
and participative systems of governance and institutions; and
adopting a precautionary approach, whereby potentially damaging
activities are fully evaluated so as to avoid or minimise risks.
From these six principles, the SDC has developed the following
objectives for sustainable agriculture:
— Produce safe, healthy food and non-food
products in response to market demands, now and in the future;
— Enable viable livelihoods to be made
from sustainable land management, taking account of payments for
public benefits provided;
— Operate within biophysical constraints
and conform to other environmental imperatives;
— Provide environmental improvements
and other benefits that the public wants—such as re-creation
of habitats and access to land;
— Achieve the highest standards of
animal health and welfare compatible with society's right of access
to food at a fair price;
— Support the vitality of rural economies
and the diversity of rural culture;
— Sustain the resource available for
growing food and supplying other public benefits over time, except
where alternative land uses are essential in order to meet other
needs of society.
5. These objectives have been developed
into a set of principles for a sustainable food chain, which should
apply to all food which is grown and processed overseas, and consumed
here, as well as all food which is grown and processed in this
country:
A sustainable food chain should:
— Produce safe, healthy products in
response to market demands, and ensure that all consumers have
access to nutritious food, and to accurate information about food
products;
— Support the viability and diversity
of rural and urban economies and communities;
— Enable viable livelihoods to be made
from sustainable land management, both through the market and
through payments for public benefits;
— Respect and operate within the biological
limits of natural resources (especially soil, water and biodiversity);
— Achieve the highest standards of
environmental performance by reducing energy consumption, minimising
resource inputs, and using renewable energy wherever possible;
— Ensure a safe and hygienic working
environment and high social welfare and training for all employees
involved in the food chain, here and overseas;
— Achieve the highest standards of
animal health and welfare, compatible with society's right of
access to food at a fair price;
— Sustain the resource available for
growing food and supplying other public benefits over time, except
where alternative land uses are essential to meet other needs
of society.
6. With minor changes, these principles
could be adapted with reference to sustainable non-food products.
We strongly recommend that any consideration of a substantially
expanded energy crops programme in the UK should be subjected
to a comprehensive and detailed sustainability appraisal process.
In the work that we have done on the sugar supply chain (see below),
we have encountered a number of highly enthusiastic (but often
naïve) advocates of energy crops in general, who are clearly
playing little more than lip service to the concept of sustainable
land use.
7. The key questions are these: what does
the "sustainability balance sheet" look like for energy
crops, on a project by project basis, and at the national, macro-level?
Secondly, is there any reason why growing crops for energy shouldn't
have to meet the same sustainability criteria as growing crops
for food? The assumption that "bio is best" (in terms
of substituting biofuels for fossil fuels) needs to be subjected
to rigorous scrutiny at every turn.
NEED FOR
DIVERSIFICATION
8. That said, the Government's targets on
renewable energy, the developing world market for energy crops
and the wider concern about environmental impacts of fossil fuels
all suggest that energy crops need to play a larger role in UK
agriculture. And we would endorse that strategic intent, subject
to the caveats expressed above.
9. As a greater amount of food is now imported
to the UK there is also a need for farmers to diversify and to
find alternative ways of protecting the character of our countryside.
Both the Government's Energy White Paper and the Strategy for
Sustainable Farming and Food have highlighted the diversification
opportunities offered by energy crops. This needs to be backed
up with financial support, and the Government needs to ensure
that the whole cycle of biomass is considered, as farmers will
not produce biomass unless they are sure it has a market.
IMPLICATIONS FOR
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
10. So, what would a proposal to increase
the production and use of energy crops mean for sustainable development?
We appreciate that most contributions to this enquiry will concentrate
on short rotation coppice and miscanthus, but we ourselves have
done no research into these areas, and are therefore not able
to comment on the effectiveness of current policies or indeed
on their sustainable development impacts. We have, however, done
a bit of work on the sugar supply chain (as part of our broader
work programme looking at sustainable food procurement), and although
this is not yet complete, we have begun to come to some conclusions
about a range of sustainability impacts.
11. In recent years, the area in the UK
planted to sugar beet has averaged between 150,000 and 160,000
hectares. This represents approximately three% of the total area
under arable crops and temporary grassland in the UK. Increasing
this amount and using beet sugar as an energy crop could have
the following potential benefits:
— Environmental benefits of reduced
reliance on fossil fuels;
— Use of bioethanol from sugar beet
can reduce carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions by 50%
compared with petrol;
— Blending all petrol with bioethanol
obtained from sugar beet and other crops at the current 5% fuel
standard (95% petrol, 5% bioethanol) would reduce UK carbon dioxide
emissions by over 2.3 million tonnes a year;
— Benefits for biodiversity of increased
sugar beet production—beet fields provide winter cover and
food after harvest, and spring beet fields provide nesting sites
for ground nesting birds;
— If sugar beet was grown primarily
as an energy crop in the UK, rather than as a food crop, we would
need to import larger amounts of cane sugar. This would have economic
benefits for developing countries producing cane sugar, such as
Swaziland.
12. However, on the minus side there are
some potential disadvantages:
— Damaging environmental impacts associated
with increased "food miles" if more sugar cane is imported;
— Increased imports of sugar cane will
encourage increased cane production in developing countries which
removes land from staple food production;
— Rates of soil loss associated with
beet production;
— Sugar beet production is highly mechanised
and relatively energy intensive;
— Environmental impacts associated
with sugar beet haulage.
13. These are of course just headlines,
offered here to give some indication of the complexity of carrying
out more detailed sustainability appraisal.
14. Applying the SDC's core principles for
sustainable development and objectives for sustainable agriculture
could help highlight the advantages and minimise the disadvantages
of increased energy crop production. For example, putting sustainable
development at the centre means integrating environmental, social
and economic concerns; our fair shares principle means ensuring
that potential economic and social benefits of increased cane
production overseas are not out-weighed by detrimental effects
on communities and cultures; and adopting a precautionary approach
would mean that all potentially damaging effects of increasing
energy crop production were fully evaluated so that risk was minimised.
15. Moreover, our specific sustainable agriculture
objectives require that the right balance between energy crop
production and sustaining resources available for growing food
is achieved; that the environmental impacts (including greenhouse
gas emissions from transport) and resource inputs associated with
energy crop production are minimised and fully taken into account;
that we work within natural constraints and maintain landscape
and biodiversity; and that growers (here and overseas) receive
a fair price for crops.
16. In short therefore, increased production
of sugar beet as an energy crop would be a good candidate for
the Government's Integrated Policy Appraisal tool for assessing
the social, environmental and economic impacts of policy proposals,
which is being piloted by Defra at the moment. Only in this way
can properly informed decisions be reached about the benefits
of sugar beet (or other agricultural products) as biofuels, and
whether the public benefits justify the level of public finance
incentives to be applied.
28 March 2003
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