Biofuel sustainability and the formation of transnational hybrid governance

TY - JOUR

T1 - Biofuel sustainability and the formation of transnational hybrid governance

AU - Ponte, Stefano

AU - Daugbjerg, Carsten

PY - 2015/1/2

Y1 - 2015/1/2

N2 - We examine the transnational governance of biofuel sustainability and its coexistence with the WTO trade regime. The way in which the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED) is shaping transnational biofuel governance shows deep and mutual dependence between public and private. The EU relies on a private system of compliance and verification, but private certification schemes are dependent on the incentives provided by RED to expand commercially. A second layer of hybridity in this governance system is that it is emerging in the shadow of the WTO. EU policymakers refrained from introducing binding requirements for social sustainability criteria in RED, and left private certifiers to fill this gap. Our discussion also serves to introduce the symposium on the ‘Transnational Hybrid Governance’ (THG) of biofuels. The three contributions to the symposium analyse the complex making and mutual shaping of biofuel sustainability and discuss the institutional features, processes, networks, and sociotechnical devices by which markets are organised, and economic and political orders take shape.

AB - We examine the transnational governance of biofuel sustainability and its coexistence with the WTO trade regime. The way in which the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED) is shaping transnational biofuel governance shows deep and mutual dependence between public and private. The EU relies on a private system of compliance and verification, but private certification schemes are dependent on the incentives provided by RED to expand commercially. A second layer of hybridity in this governance system is that it is emerging in the shadow of the WTO. EU policymakers refrained from introducing binding requirements for social sustainability criteria in RED, and left private certifiers to fill this gap. Our discussion also serves to introduce the symposium on the ‘Transnational Hybrid Governance’ (THG) of biofuels. The three contributions to the symposium analyse the complex making and mutual shaping of biofuel sustainability and discuss the institutional features, processes, networks, and sociotechnical devices by which markets are organised, and economic and political orders take shape.

KW - transnational governance

KW - hybridity

KW - sustainability

KW - biofuels

U2 - 10.1080/09644016.2014.954776

DO - 10.1080/09644016.2014.954776

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0964-4016

VL - 24

SP - 96

EP - 114

JO - Environmental Politics

JF - Environmental Politics

IS - 1

ER -