Sustainability as a smokescreen: the inadequacy of certifying fuels and feeds

Are certification schemes handling the environmental and social problems caused by vast monocultures of sugarcane and soy? This research looks at the production of sugarcane and soy in the Mercosur countries in Latin America and examines whether the existing or proposed certification systems can manage the risks associated with their production.

This publication looks at six certification schemes to examine whether they would be effective in Latin America where production of sugarcane and soy is the highest.

It finds that:

• growing demand for sugarcane and soy in Latin America causes serious environmental and social problems - mainly associated with the expansion of sugarcane and soy rather than how it is grown
  
• wider societal problems created by this expansion, fall outside the remit of the certification schemes and needs to be addressed urgently
  
• certification schemes in development are northern-based initiatives that civil society groups in Latin America have largely rejected or boycotted - they are primarily aimed at crops grown for export, not the domestic market
  
• the lack of transparency in many schemes could result in standards becoming open to abuse.

The FOE EUrope makes a number of recommendations:

• suspend current targets to use agrofuels within the EU
• reconsider whether agrofuel policies can be achieved sustainably
• reduce dependency on animal feeds like soy
• introduce wider policy mechanisms that go beyond certification - and that control demand
• promote more sustainable use of land that guarantees food sovereignty and the protection of natural resources
• develop real solutions to the energy and climate crisis to reduce the demand for fuel

The document concludes that certification has been unsuccessful in addressing challenges with expansion of sugarcane and soy; other methods and tools can additionally be used to guarantee a more sustainable production of agrofuels.