EWABA welcomes broadening of sustainable feedstock base

EWABA has welcomed the broadening of the sustainable feedstock base in today’s Council General Approach on the ReFuelEU aviation proposal.
The EWABA association, representing the EU waste-based and advanced biodiesel industry, strongly backed the broadening of the feedstock base included in the ReFuelEU general approach agreed by EU Member States’ Transport Ministers.
The organisation said: “We are confident that this modification to the Commission proposal will ensure that the aviation sector is decarbonised as efficiently as possible, while no feedstock that is sustainable and available is left behind.
“This is a step in the right direction as it makes the proposed blending targets as ambitious as they are realistic. However, broadening the feedstock base is not enough to ensure that key waste lipid feedstocks are used in the most efficient way in the maritime and road/heavy duty sectors.
“We believe that a hard limitation placed on aviation fuels deriving from Part B Annex IX feedstocks coupled with a bold promotion through sub-mandates of developing SAF pathways with scalable feedstocks (e-fuels, alcohol-to-jet, Fischer-Tropsch, etc.) would ensure that the best GHG reduction performance possible is reached, limiting unintended consequences across the whole EU transport sector.
“The possibility for Member States to set higher SAF mandates should be further refined so as to ensure that increases are met with technologies using scalable feedstocks. These important matters should now be addressed by the European Parliament in the formation of its first reading position and in subsequent trilogue negotiations between the EU law-making institutions.”