AUTHORS – Emma Watkins – Bettina Kretschmer – David Baldock – Ben Allen – Clunie Keenleyside – Graham Tucker

Reaching medium and longer term renewable energy targets requires considerable effort in stepping up renewable energy deployment. In this context, the UK gears up for a major expansion in bioenergy supply, which necessitates a strategy for making best use of this valuable but environmentally very sensitive resource.

Given the environmental sensitivities surrounding different bioenergy sources, a new IEEP report commissioned by the RSPB, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace UK and the Woodland Trust proposes a sustainability hierarchy as a strategic approach for exploiting the UK’s domestic bioenergy resource. This hierarchy of biomass feedstocks seeks to deliver environmental benefits beyond greenhouse gas savings. The report also develops a suite of sectoral policy tools to implement the hierarchy in practice.