Bioenergy as Integration of the Sustainable Development Principle in Energy Policy - The Particular Case of EC Biomass Regulation

Abstract

The idea of sustainable energy is an effect of integrating the principle of sustainable development into energy law. Sustainable energy is energy that is sustainably generated, refined and consumed and is at least twofold. If sustainable energy consumption focuses more on energy efficiency, sustainable energy production will look to renewable energy sources for energy, which is the topic of this paper.

The concept of sustainable energy already appeared in the 1987 Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development - Our Common Future - chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland (hereafter 'Bruntland Report'). It is associated with the notion of safety, dependability and protection of the environment, the Commission seeing the latter as closely interlinked to the concept of sustainability for the energy future.

Twenty years later, an assessment can be done of the implementation of sustainable development as a guiding principle of action, and its legal achievements so far. The European Union is here taken as study example because of the comprehensive legal framework that it has developed since 1997, supported by the adoption of a Sustainable Development Strategy at the 2001 Gothenburg Summit, as completed and revised afterwards.

In order to evaluate the state of integration of the sustainable development principle into the energy policy, and in doing so, the possibility of a sustainable future for the EU via the use of bioenergy, this chapter attempts to answer the following questions: How is biomass defined under EC legislation, and how does the legal qualification of the biomass impact the use of bioenergy? How is the production of energy from biomass, i.e. biomass conversion, regulated? How is the use of energy specifically produced from biomass regulated? What EC legal framework is applicable to the promotion of biomass?

Keywords: Bioenergy, Biomass, Renewable Energy, European Union, Sustainable Development, Integration Principle