IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/agrhuv/v28y2011i3p413-425.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The legitimacy of biofuel certification

Author

Listed:
  • Lena Partzsch

Abstract

The biofuel boom is placing enormous demands on existing cropping systems, with the most crucial consequences in the agri-food sector. The biofuel industry is responding by initiating private governance and certification. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and the Cramer Commission, among others, have formulated criteria on “sustainable” biofuel production and processing. This article explores the legitimacy of private governance and certification by the biofuel industry, highlighting opportunities and challenges. It argues that the concept of output based legitimacy is problematic in the case of biofuel as long as no consensus or commonly agreed “best” solution has been established on what sustainable biofuel production is. Furthermore, it shows that the private governance initiatives analyzed fail to adequately include actors from developing countries. Finally, the article argues that we need mechanisms for control and accountability in order to guarantee that the political output of biofuel certification serves the common welfare. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Suggested Citation

  • Lena Partzsch, 2011. "The legitimacy of biofuel certification," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 28(3), pages 413-425, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:28:y:2011:i:3:p:413-425
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-009-9235-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10460-009-9235-4
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10460-009-9235-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. von Geibler, Justus, 2007. "Biomassezertifizierung unter Wachstumsdruck: wie wirksam sind Nachhaltigkeitsstandards bei steigender Nachfrage," Wuppertal Papers 168, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy.
    2. Strange,Susan, 1996. "The Retreat of the State," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521564298.
    3. Strange,Susan, 1996. "The Retreat of the State," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521564403.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Inge Stupak & Jamie Joudrey & C. Tattersall Smith & Luc Pelkmans & Helena Chum & Annette Cowie & Oskar Englund & Chun Sheng Goh & Martin Junginger, 2016. "A global survey of stakeholder views and experiences for systems needed to effectively and efficiently govern sustainability of bioenergy," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(1), pages 89-118, January.
    2. Spencer Henson, 2011. "Private agrifood governance: conclusions, observations and provocations," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 28(3), pages 443-451, September.
    3. Theresa Selfa & Carmen Bain & Renata Moreno, 2014. "Depoliticizing land and water “grabs” in Colombia: the limits of Bonsucro certification for enhancing sustainable biofuel practices," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(3), pages 455-468, September.
    4. Richard Helliwell & Julia Tomei, 2017. "Practicing stewardship: EU biofuels policy and certification in the UK and Guatemala," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(2), pages 473-484, June.
    5. Graeme Auld & Stefan Renckens & Benjamin Cashore, 2015. "Transnational private governance between the logics of empowerment and control," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(2), pages 108-124, June.
    6. Pavel Castka & Charles J. Corbett, 2016. "Governance of Eco-Labels: Expert Opinion and Media Coverage," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 135(2), pages 309-326, May.
    7. Rasul Ahmed Minja & Stefano Ponte & Asubisye Mwamfupe & Christine Noe & Daniel Brockington, 2023. "The Legitimacy of Sustainability Initiatives in Tanzania," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 35(3), pages 453-482, June.
    8. German, Laura & Goetz, Ariane & Searchinger, Tim & Oliveira, Gustavo de L.T. & Tomei, Julia & Hunsberger, Carol & Weigelt, Jes, 2017. "Sine Qua Nons of sustainable biofuels: Distilling implications of under-performance for national biofuel programs," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 806-817.
    9. Nia Kurniawati Hidayat & Astrid Offermans & Pieter Glasbergen, 2018. "Sustainable palm oil as a public responsibility? On the governance capacity of Indonesian Standard for Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO)," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 35(1), pages 223-242, March.
    10. Agni Kalfagianni & Lena Partzsch & Miriam Beulting, 2020. "Governance for global stewardship: can private certification move beyond commodification in fostering sustainability transformations?," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 37(1), pages 65-81, March.
    11. Marin-Burgos, Victoria & Clancy, Joy S. & Lovett, Jon C., 2015. "Contesting legitimacy of voluntary sustainability certification schemes: Valuation languages and power asymmetries in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil in Colombia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 303-313.
    12. Laura Silva-Castañeda, 2012. "A forest of evidence: third-party certification and multiple forms of proof—a case study of oil palm plantations in Indonesia," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 29(3), pages 361-370, September.
    13. Lena Partzsch, 2017. "Powerful Individuals in a Globalized World," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 8(1), pages 5-13, February.
    14. Sarah L. Stattman & Aarti Gupta & Lena Partzsch & Peter Oosterveer, 2018. "Toward Sustainable Biofuels in the European Union? Lessons from a Decade of Hybrid Biofuel Governance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-17, November.
    15. de Man, Reinier & German, Laura, 2017. "Certifying the sustainability of biofuels: Promise and reality," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 871-883.
    16. Arthur P. J. Mol & Peter Oosterveer, 2015. "Certification of Markets, Markets of Certificates: Tracing Sustainability in Global Agro-Food Value Chains," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(9), pages 1-21, September.
    17. Mikkel Kruuse & Kasper Reming Tangbæk & Kristjan Jespersen & Caleb Gallemore, 2019. "Navigating Input and Output Legitimacy in Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives: Institutional Stewards at Work," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-27, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arts, Bas, 2014. "Assessing forest governance from a ‘Triple G’ perspective: Government, governance, governmentality⁎⁎This article belongs to the Special Issue: Assessing Forest Governance," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 17-22.
    2. Keyan Lai, 2021. "National security and FDI policy ambiguity: A commentary," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(4), pages 496-505, December.
    3. Michele-Lee Moore & Frances R. Westley & Tim Brodhead, 2012. "Social Finance Intermediaries and Social Innovation," Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 184-205, October.
    4. Assen Slim, 2015. "L’aide européenne (1989-2020) aux PECO sous le prisme de l’économie politique internationale (EPI)," Post-Print hal-01271881, HAL.
    5. Simplice A, Asongu, 2011. "Government quality determinants of stock market performance in developing countries," MPRA Paper 35508, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Mark Hallerberg, 2002. "Introduction," European Union Politics, , vol. 3(2), pages 139-150, June.
    7. Zoltan Adam, 2004. "Autonomy and capacity: a state-centred approach to post-communist transition in Central Europe," UCL SSEES Economics and Business working paper series 40, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES).
    8. David B. Audretsch, 2018. "Industrial Organization and the Organization of Industries: Linking Industry Structure to Economic Performance," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(4), pages 603-620, June.
    9. Sami Zemni & Koenraad Bogaert, 2011. "Urban renewal and social development in Morocco in an age of neoliberal government," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(129), pages 403-417, September.
    10. Anne Roemer-Mahler, 2013. "Business conflict and global politics: The pharmaceutical industry and the global protection of intellectual property rights," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 121-152, February.
    11. Egni Malo, 2014. "What should Marxism materialism propose to International Relations?," Academicus International Scientific Journal, Entrepreneurship Training Center Albania, issue 10, pages 131-169, July.
    12. Elizabeth C Dunn, 2003. "Trojan Pig: Paradoxes of Food Safety Regulation," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 35(8), pages 1493-1511, August.
    13. Theo de Bruijn & Peter Groenewegen & Jesper Grolin, 1997. "Global restructuring—a place for ecology?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(4), pages 173-184, September.
    14. Sylvie Daviet, 2015. "An introduction: Trans-Mediterranean entrepreneurship and the internationalization of the Maghreb at the turn of the 2010s [Introduction L’entrepreneuriat transméditerranéen et l’internationalisati," Post-Print hal-03171941, HAL.
    15. Suddaby, Roy & Cooper, David J. & Greenwood, Royston, 2007. "Transnational regulation of professional services: Governance dynamics of field level organizational change," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 32(4-5), pages 333-362.
    16. Lingyu Lu & Cameron G. Thies, 2010. "Trade Interdependence and the Issues at Stake in the Onset of Militarized Conflict," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 27(4), pages 347-368, September.
    17. Bennett, Elizabeth A., 2017. "Who Governs Socially-Oriented Voluntary Sustainability Standards? Not the Producers of Certified Products," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 53-69.
    18. Slavo Radosevic, 2003. "The emerging industrial architecture of the wider Europe: The co-evolution of industrial and political structures," UCL SSEES Economics and Business working paper series 29, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES).
    19. Graham, David & Woods, Ngaire, 2006. "Making corporate self-regulation effective in developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 868-883, May.
    20. Amengual, Matthew, 2010. "Complementary Labor Regulation: The Uncoordinated Combination of State and Private Regulators in the Dominican Republic," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 405-414, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:28:y:2011:i:3:p:413-425. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.