The Role of National Legislation in Bioenergy Governance

Bioenergy supply chains pass several layers of governance, including both emerging governance mechanisms that specifically address bioenergy and existing regulations, such as environmental codes affecting forestry and agriculture. The sustainability requirements associated with the EU Renewable Energy Directive (EU-RED) is an example of how norms and sustainability priorities in one region can be expressed so as to influence activities in other regions, when actors in these other regions aim to produce for the EU market. Achieving aspirations for developing sustainable bioenergy production systems and supply and value chains requires coordination among actors and parties to ensure that all necessary governance mechanisms are in place and capable of fulfilling the appropriate standards setting, control, governance and assurance roles that are required, collectively. In this paper, the capacity of public governance to promote bioenergy production for the EU-RED market was assessed for thirteen countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Environmental legislation was assessed on how it covers the sustainability requirements included in EU-RED, as well as general sustainability aspects. The countries’ capacities to enforce legislation were assessed by combining globally applicable indexes. While some aspects (e.g., nature protection) were found to be mostly covered well in legislation, other (e.g., wetland protection, GHG emissions) where covered less well. Results indicate that enforcement of legislation can be a challenge in many countries