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Activities
UNEP is working in partnership with governments, the private
sector and NGOs on a number of activities to help bioenergy reach
its sustainable potential:
Assure environmental and social
sustainability
To ensure that bioenergy can achieve its potential benefits,
sustainability of the entire life-cycle, i.e. production, conversion
and use of bioenergy needs to be assured. In close cooperation
with partners in governments, industry and civil society, UNEP
is defining a sustainability standard that should help reduce
the risks while the bioenergy market continues to develop.
- Roundtable
on Sustainable Biofuels
The RSB is a process brings together a large variety
of stakeholders to develop principles and criteria for sustainable
production of biofuels
- Due
Diligence Guidelines
The Due Diligence Guidelines are a practical tool for
financiers and investors to check and mitigate their risk of
investments in the renewable energy sector
- Collaboration
with Daimler, WWF, and the Ministry of Agriculture of Baden
Wuertemberg
Result of this cooperation is a background document that
reviews existing certification systems linked to biomass certification,
compiles initiatives by the international community and country
policies on biofuels, and gives an indication on requirements
of different crops
Support Bioenergy planning - from assessments
to tools for decision makers
At the cross roads of different policy areas, bioenergy requires
trade offs and coordination amongst energy,
agriculture, transport, environment, and trade policies. To enable
informed decisions, UNEP is working to improve the analytical
basis, develop tools and engage in building capacity.
- GBEP
GBEP is an initiative by the G8 +5 (Brazil, China, India, Mexico
and South Africa) taken at the 2005 Gleneagles Summit, to support
wider, cost effective, biomass and biofuels deployment, particularly
in developing countries
- Resource
Panel
The Resource Panel provides independent scientific assessment
of the environmental impacts due to the use of resources over
the full life cycle, and advise governments and organisations
on ways to reduce these impacts in a number of areas, including
biofuels
- Mapping
Mapping is an important tool to help solid bioenergy planning
by identifying areas that should be exempt from bioenergy development
because of their high conservation value in terms of biodiversity
or in terms of CO2 storage capacity ,and areas that would be
suitable for bioenergy development
Business Models / Creative financing for small
farmers and of small-scale production for local use
In order to ensure that the potential development benefits of
bioenergy production materialize, UNEP supports the involvement
of small farmers in larger projects (participatory business models,
such as contract farming or equity) and the development of small-scale
projects (local production for local use).
- AREED
II
UNEP's Rural Energy Enterprise Development Programme is an initiative
offering enterprise development services and start-up financing
to 'clean energy' enterprises. In a second phase of the activities
in Africa (AREED), attention will be given to projects involving
biofuels
- The
COMPETE/ENDA conference on bioenergy financing in Africa
In October 2009, together with the COMPETE network and ENDA
Environmental Development Action in the Third World, UNEP co-organized
a conference that brought together investors, financiers, donors,
project developers, entrepreneurs, NGOs and international organizations
to share experiences and examples of projects that illustrate
best practices for bioenergy financing in Africa
- Roundtable
on Bioenergy Enterprise
The Roundtable consists of a network of centers of excellence
that will pull together, analyse and develop materials that
will ultimately help small farmers to engage in Bioenergy enterprise
development (plant and technological requirements, challenges
in the production and conversion phases and ways to address
them; business models and ways to help smallholders to get organised,
including taking into account environmental and social co-benefits
into classical cost-benefit analyses; barriers to Bioenergy
enterprise development and ways to overcome them (financial,
agronomical and technological, and political)
- Local Biofuel
Production for Use in Telecommunication Applications
Feasibility Study with Diligent and Ericsson to explore
options how demand for new services that require energy to operate
could spur the Bioenergy market
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Assure environmental and social
sustainability
Support Bioenergy planning - from
assessments to tools for decision makers
Business Models / Creative financing
for small farmers and of small-scale production for local use
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