UPM Biofore Magazine 1-2018

Norway is on an ambitious path to reduce transport emissions. According to ZERO, a Norwegian environmental non-governmental organisation, sustainable biofuels will play an important part in future transportation and the bioeconomy.

TEXT Saara Pakarinen   PHOTOGRAPHY UPM; courtesy of the interviewee

O ver recent years, Norway –Western Europe's biggest oil and gas producer – has taken strong actions to reduce its carbon footprint. The new government platformplaces emphasis on energy transition and investments in new technologies. “We need to decrease the use of fossil fuels quite fast. There’s no time to waste and we have to do a lot of things at the same time. Using sustainable biofuels is an important part of the solution in the transport sector. The other parts are using electric vehicles that run on batteries or hydrogen. These alternatives should not compete with but support each other,” says Head of Policy and Research, Kåre Gunnar Fløystad from the Zero Emission Resource Organisation (ZERO). ZERO is a Norwegian non-governmental organisation focusing on climate solutions. It has been active in promoting new

Full green ahead

They see biofuels as a part of the solution and want to increase sustainability in biofuels,” Fløystad says. The biofuel market is growing in Norway andmentioned in several parts of the country’s new government programme. “In the existing policy, Norway has a 20 per cent target for 2020 in the road transport sector, and the aim is to increase the use of biofuels to 40 per cent by 2030, depending on technology development and other alternatives. There is a strong support for the use of sustainable biofuels in the national transport plan as well, and at the moment we’re waiting for the hearing on a 1 per cent obligation for the aviation sector. The implementation will take place on 1 January 2019.” Norway will favour sustainable advanced biofuels Biofuels have had their “ups and downs” in Norway, but in 2015 a more ambitious new policy promoted biofuels to reduce transport emissions, leading to an increase in biofuel usage. Some biofuels have turned out to be more environmentally sound than others, and the most sustainable of these are favoured. According to Fløystad, there are hopes and expectations about Norway using more forest-based advanced biofuels. Although forest-based biomass is a great

technology that enables emission-free solutions in all sectors. Biofuels are one important alternative to fossil fuels. “We have been working on the policy side and among decisionmakers for a more sustainable transport sector. The decisionmakers see eye to eye on the subject and they are well informed on the reasons for using biofuels.

UPM BIOFUELS AND ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANISATION ZERO cooperate to promote green shift in transportation and petrochemical industry. The work focuses on creating a predictable long term operating environment for sustainable, advanced biofuels to enable climate change mitigation in transport with renewable fuels.

>>

Kåre Gunnar Fløystad

30 | UPM BIOFORE BEYOND FOSSILS

1/2018 |  31