One-third of the used cooking oil (UCO) used in Europe\u2019s biofuels market is more than likely fraudulent, a source from the biofuel industry has told EURACTIV.com and urged Brussels to \u201cthink again\u201d about how the entire supply chain is monitored.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is because the approximately 70 countries that supply Europe with UCO do not have the capacity to collect, process, certify and export the nearly 3.5 billion litres that will be consumed here in 2019,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially when you consider that many countries outside the EU need much of it in their own domestic markets,\u201d the same source added.<\/p>\n
According to the revised Renewable Energy Directive, UCO is double counted. In theory, this means, for instance, that if UCO\u2019s consumption is 2%, it will be counted as 4% of the total energy used in transport. Thus, it\u2019s an attractive solution for the member states that wish to meet their green transport goals.<\/p>\n
However, in practice, things get more complicated. The UK and the Netherlands have recently launched official investigations into companies which have allegedly been selling unsustainable biodiesel containing palm oil.<\/p>\n
EU sources told EURACTIV last month that the monitoring of the directive implementation remains to a large extent the responsibility of the member states.
\nCritics suggest that there is a hidden link between UCO and palm oil, which the EU has decided to phase out due to its high-ILUC (Indirect Land Use Change) risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a scenario where UCO attracts super premium pricing due to double-counting, where it is cheap and easy to adulterate virgin palm oil to seem like UCO and where the regulation is not adequately designed to prevent fraud, it is self-evident that much of our UCO is fake,\u201d the industry source said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Brussels assumes that the global UCO supply chain is an \u2018honour system\u2019 then it should think again,\u201d the source added.<\/p>\n
The European Court of Auditors published a report in 2016 and warned about the hidden dangers of double-counted biofuels and particularly UCO.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe EU certification system for the sustainability of biofuels is not fully reliable because of weaknesses in the Commission\u2019s recognition procedure and subsequent supervision of voluntary schemes,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsidering the inadequacy of the checks to verify the origin of biomass consisting of waste or residues, it cannot be excluded that data on double counted biofuels might include quantities of biodiesel certified as produced from UCO, whilst, in reality, the feedstock may have been from virgin oil or fraudulently denatured virgin oil,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
Contacted by EURACTIV, an ECA spokesperson said the Court had not followed up its audit of biofuels in detail and thus could not provide a comment.<\/p>\n
Laura Buffet from the NGO Transport & Environment commented: \u201cIt is crucial that authorities apply a high level of monitoring on biofuels supply chains and conduct investigations when needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018We are an easy target\u2019<\/p>\n
Following the publication of this article, Angel Alberdi, Secretary General of EWABA, the EU waste-based biodiesel association gathering EU UCO collectors and producers of UCO-based biodiesel, commented:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe reject in the strongest terms these allegations from an unnamed source. Unsubstantiated allegations such as this one are scandalously slanderous and to the benefit of our competitors who are trying to smear our industry for their own advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that UCOME delivers the highest GHG savings as stated in the REDII, is produced in commercial quantities and our customers pay a premium to get the most sustainable molecules.<\/p>\n
\u201cUCOME is therefore an easy target,\u201d Alberdi said.<\/p>\n
He admitted, though, that there was an ongoing investigation in the Netherlands and in the UK.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf fraud is eventually proved it will be a good outcome as actual fraud is extremely damaging given that fraudsters benefit from a competitive advantage over the immense majority of industry players who are bearing the costs of processing waste oils and of implementing traceability systems,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur industry is currently working with certification schemes and other industry stakeholders to continue improving traceability in the whole value chain as past fraud scandals have erupted in sectors other than ours,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One-third of the used cooking oil (UCO) used in Europe\u2019s biofuels market is more than likely fraudulent, a source from the biofuel industry has told EURACTIV.com and urged Brussels to \u201cthink again\u201d about how the entire supply chain is monitored. \u201cThis is because the approximately 70 countries that supply Europe with UCO do not have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5818,15917],"supplier":[],"class_list":["post-64423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biofuel","tag-cookingoil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64423"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=64423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}