Industry All About Sustainability

The World Congress kicked off on Sunday in Chicago and sustainability was on everyone's mind. John Heissenbuttel of Heissenbuttel Natural Resource Consulting announced an initiative to make sure that advanced biofuels are produced in a sustainable manner. The groups involved will set voluntary standards to ensure cellulosic biomass – dedicated fuel crops, crop residues, purpose-grown wood, and forestry residues – for biofuels are grown and harvested in a sustainable manner. In setting the standards, the group is considering land use, water use, climate change, and socioeconomic impacts. Jacques Beaudry-Losique of the U.S. Department of Energy Biomass and Biofuels Program, said that it's important for the U.S. and other countries to stabilize energy prices as well as food and agriculture prices. Jay Keasling of the Joint Bioenergy Institute in California, one of the DOE Bioenergy Research Centers, discussed some of the expectations of industrial biotech to produce energy and advanced biofuels.