RSB Certification System launched

The Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB) has launched the RSB Certification System, which provides the assurances operators need to guarantee the sustainability and traceability of their feedstocks and fuels.

The 18 March 2011 saw the new RSB system receive provisional recognition by the German government under its regulatory scheme for biofuels.

And on 22 March 2011 Boeing launched a partnership with the RSB called the Sustainable Biomass Consortium (SBC), a research initiative focused on increasing collaboration between voluntary standards and regulatory requirements for biomass used to create jet fuel and bioenergy for other sectors.

'The RSB standard is a result of a four-year effort building a global consensus of over 120 organisations from farmers and biofuel producers to refiners, regulators, civil society and inter-governmental organisations,' says Juan Marco Alvarez, director of the Economy and Environmental Governance group at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). 'The RSB has elevated the role of social and environmental safeguards, emphasising the critical aspects of sustainability in the biofuels sector. It is now ready to start making it achievable.'

'The RSB certification system offers a unique set of online tools that take much of the complexity out of the compliance,' explains RSB executive secretary Alwin Kopse. 'We are delighted to provide biofuel operators with a truly comprehensive standard and a broad range of online tools to help streamline the compliance process from crop
to tank.'

Those biofuel operators that receive RSB certification will be able to assure their customers that their product is responsibly produced and trace the origin of their product along the entire supply chain through various chain-of-custody models.