Supergen Bioenergy Hub welcomes the CCC’s priority recommendation for a UK biomass strategy aligned to net zero

Last week the Climate Change Committee (CCC) published its latest Progress Report to the UK Parliament, highlighting the need for a Biomass Strategy that is aligned to the UK’s path to net zero as a priority recommendation.

The report stated that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy should “Deliver a biomass strategy that is aligned to the UK’s path to Net Zero, and which reflects recommendations on governance, monitoring and best-use from the Committee’s 2018 Biomass report and 2020 Land Use report. The UK should also continue to take a global lead on further developing and improving UK and international biomass governance and sustainability criteria.”

The Supergen Bioenergy Hub welcomes the CCC’s priority recommendation. We firmly agree that there is a need to enable bioenergy systems that deliver global carbon reductions, but that must be balanced with a robust understanding of the wider sustainability impacts of such systems, prompting us to develop a Supergen sustainability indicator model to appraise our bioenergy case studies.

We will soon publish our response to the UK’s Biomass Strategy call for evidence which details our priorities to enable sustainable bioenergy in a net zero future, and we will be working with three Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Networks in Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy (NIBB) to provide academic input as the strategy develops (The Carbon Recycling Network, The Biomass Biorefinery Network, and The High Value Biorenewables Network).

We will be exploring the role of biomass in achieving net zero and showcasing our latest work at the , taking place 1-3 September 2021.