The production of scientific evidence on indirect land use change and its role in EU biofuels policy

Abstract

One of the most heatedly debated aspects of EU’s policy on biofuels in recent times concern indirect land use change (ILUC) induced by the production of biofuels. However, when the EU Renewable Energies Directive (RED) adopted in 2008, regulating ILUC was not considered for the time being. Ever since, the fundamental conflicts on biofuels regarding their social and ecological effects crystallize in the debates on ILUC, which is underpinned by the wide range of results of scientific research on the topic. Starting from explaining the concept of ILUC and from conceptual considerations regarding new ways of knowledge production and its use in the policy process, we firstly trace the policy process on biofuels’ ILUC with a special focus on the actors and their stances in this context. Subsequently, mainly by document analysis, we give a detailed overview of the research on biofuels’ ILUC, focusing on which actors are related to the various ILUC studies and on what the relationship between these actors and the studies’ orientations (methodologies, etc.) and outcomes is. The analysis shows how the increase in ILUC research and its characteristics can be related to the societal problems arising from biofuels production, to the actors involved in it, and to their stakes in the issue. This points to the social embeddedness of ILUC research into societal as well as political practices and therefore – at least partly – qualifies it as a new mode of knowledge production. Furthermore, it points to special role scientific evidence plays regarding the policy process on the regulation of ILUC in the EU. In this respect, our observations suggest that, on the one hand, the scientific evidence on biofuels’ ILUC as well as the uncertainty and complexity has been well perceived and taken up in the policy process. On the other hand, however, its role has eventually been reduced to an instrumental one, serving to legitimize and rationalize decisions agreed upon elsewhere beforehand.