ABOUT US
The Biofuture Platform was established in 2016 by 20 countries, under the leadership of Brazil, to be a country-led, multistakeholder mechanism to accelerate the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon bioeconomy. Building upon this successful collaboration, a Biofuture Platform Initiative was established under the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) in September 2021, with a view to enhance links to key national and global decision makers.
The CEM is a high-level global forum to promote policies and programs that encourage the transition to a global clean energy economy. Initiatives are based on areas of common interest among participating governments and other stakeholders.
The CEM Biofuture Platform Initiative leads global actions to accelerate development, scale-up, and deployment of sustainable bio-based alternatives to fossil-based fuels, chemicals, and materials. The Initiative provides a forum for policy dialogue and collaboration among leading countries, organizations, academia, and the private sector.
It is coordinated by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and it counts among its partners key organizations such as the IEA Bioenergy Technology Collaboration Programme (TCP), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP). Furthermore, it works closely with other CEM initiatives including those focusing on Innovation, Carbon Capture, and Hydrogen.
Strategic goals of the Biofuture Platform Initiative are to:
1. Foster consensus on biomass sustainability, availability, and governance
2. Promote policy best practices and convergence
3. Enable supportive financing mechanisms
4. Promote cooperation on policy, regulations, and technologies.
THE ADVANCED BIOECONOMY
Recent industrial and technological advancements have offered viable, diverse, sustainable pathways for both low carbon transport fuels and advanced bioproducts and green chemistry. In several countries, projects based on some of those pathways, such as cellulosic, or second generation, ethanol, have recently reached or are about to reach commercial scale. Green diesel, drop-in fuels, algae and advanced aviation biofuels are among several other promising technologies that are leaving the lab and beginning to take the roads and skies.
Cellulosic and other advanced low carbon fuels are an excellent way to reduce carbon emissions. Several independent assessments have indicated an up to 90% reduction in CO2 emissions for cellulosic biofuels, when compared to those of gasoline.
Since they can be blended with gasoline in significant proportions without any engine or infrastructure changes, advanced low carbon fuels can provide a scalable and immediate low-carbon solution for a world in urgent need of them.
Cellulosic and other advanced low carbon fuels can be produced with no additional land and water resources, because they use agricultural residues and waste as feedstock, and greatly increase productivity per hectare of any crop. Advanced biofuels can increase income in rural areas and bring down the cost of food by increasing productivity in the field.
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In a vision for a modern, sustainable bioeconomy, future bio-refineries will be able to convert residues and waste into fuels, electricity, chemicals and pharmaceutical ingredients – like today’s petrochemical refineries, but smaller, greener and more sustainable.