The UK has gone further than any other country to give fuel suppliers a real incentive to produce sustainable biofuels that do not harm the environment. Suppliers are required to produce sustainability reports including information on where their biofuel crops come from and the level of carbon savings they will achieve. The Renewable Fuels Agency will publish these reports and compare the performance of transport fuel suppliers.
Alongside this, a review into the indirect impacts of biofuels has already been announced by Ruth Kelly to ensure that the full economic and environmental impacts of biofuel production are taken into account in the formation of government policy beyond 2010.
The UK government has also recently published a body of research as a contribution to the debate on the wider sustainability impacts of biofuels. The first, a review of work on the environmental sustainability of international biofuels production and use, commissioned by Defra, is an appraisal of the current evidence of the opportunities and threats from biofuel production. The second considers the possible impact of the RTFO on users of tallow. It suggests that turning tallow into biodiesel does not deliver any net environmental benefits compared to the current uses of tallow.