Biofuture Platform Initiative (BfPI) | Clean Energy Ministerial |Biofuture Platform Initiative (BfPI)

Overview

The CEM Biofuture Platform Initiative was built upon the previously existing Biofuture Platform, which is a 20-country effort established in 2016 under the leadership of Brazil to accelerate the transition to a sustainable, low carbon, global bioeconomy.

The framework and collaboration fostered under the BfP, serves as the foundation to the activities under the established CEM initiative.

The Clean Energy Ministerial Biofuture Platform Initiative (BfPI) aims to raise international ambition and advance sustainable commercial scale bioenergy production, trade and use globally, across all sectors of the economy via analysis, policies, programs and projects making bioenergy a key enabler in the global clean energy transition.

The BfPI will offer an opportunity to raise the visibility of international bioenergy activities to energy ministers in the larger context of the clean energy discussions.

Goals

The BfPI seeks to:

raise the awareness of high-level policymakers about the benefits, opportunities and priorities to scale up sustainable bioenergy worldwide;
promote international collaboration and dialogue between member countries and their policy makers, industry, academia and other stakeholders;
identify the main economic and non-economic barriers to modern bioenergy deployment and explore opportunities to overcome these barriers;
formulate best practices towards effective evaluation, sharing and promotion of sustainable practices for the production of biomass and the entire value chain life cycle; and foster the sharing of information and best practices (in terms of both technologies and policies) across countries.

The initiative helps CEM member countries to realise their sustainable bioenergy potential, thus supporting transitions to a low-carbon energy system (and bioeconomy, more broadly) and contributing to reaching targets under the Paris Agreement. In addition to climate change mitigation, increased modern bioenergy production and use may contribute to other key policy objectives as well, such as increased diversity and security of energy supply; improved access to modern energy services (in developing countries); improved local air quality; economic development; and job creation.

Key Activities

As discussed by participants in the CEM10 side event “Sustainable bioenergy and biofuels: the road to low-carbon transitions”, the initiative could play a key role by:

addressing bioenergy within the broader framework of the bioeconomy, thus considering both synergies and trade-offs with other biomass end-use sectors;
assessing and analysing bioenergy as part of the broader clean energy portfolio and in the context of energy solutions considered by other CEM initiatives such as hydrogen, CCUS, and smart grids;
fostering an active engagement with the private sector, including potentially through public private partnerships.
Promoting collaboration on policy and regulatory direction;
sharing of information on commercialization of integrated bioenergy, biorefinery/biofuels and bioproduct facilities, as well as project implementation;
working to reduce global and local sustainable feedstock and infrastructure supply chain costs; and
improving communication, education and outreach to promote the production and end-use of bioenergy, biofuels and bioproducts across all sectors of the economy.