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The promotion of biofuels in the EU aims at the substitution of fossil fuels and the reduction of carbon emissions. Therefore, the Renewable Energy Directive 2009/28/EC obliges EU Member States to make sure that until 2020 in transport at least 10% of the final energy consumption is derived from renewable sources or that at least a 6% greenhouse gas emission reduction is achieved. In order to safeguard that the production of biomass does not result in negative impacts on greenhouse gas stocks or on biodiversity, the promotion of biofuels and bioliquids is accompanied by sustainability requirements.

Bioenergy, used for the mitigation of climate change, has in recent years increased the pressure on land and thereby on agriculture, natural and near natural habitats. The European Union Renewable Energy Directive 2009/28/EU establishes for the first time environmental limitations that not only impact the drafting of climate change policy but also are specifically aimed at regulating its impact. Biofuels and bioliquids can only be supported by the States if they comply with certain limitations on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and requirements on the protection of biodiversity. Although several issues are not sufficiently addressed, such as socio-economic issues or indirect land-use changes, the mechanism can nonetheless serve as a blueprint for regulation in other sectors. This is particularly true for the recognition mechanism, which benchmarks voluntary certification standards against the sustainability criteria. Valuable experiences may be drawn both for the design of certification systems and for the requirements on meta-standards.

In the light of a controversial discussion on the net benefit of biofuels and bioenergy, the European Renewable Energy Directive (2009/28/EC, RED)—which sets out a mandatory target for the share of renewable energy in the transport sector (10 % by 2020)—has established a number of mandatory sustainability criteria, which biofuels and bioliquids have to meet to be able to be counted towards the target. However, these mandatory sustainability criteria so far only address selected environmental impacts (greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and biodiversity) and omit impacts on soil, water, and air as well as GHG emissions due to indirect land-use change (iLUC). Social and socio-economic impacts are not covered at all. The latter gap was addressed by the EU-FP7-funded Global-Bio-Pact project. The project’s main aim was to improve and harmonize global sustainability certification systems for biomass production, conversion systems and trade in order to prevent negative socio-economic impacts. Within the project, linkages between socio-economic and environmental impacts of biofuels/bioenergy and bio-based products were analyzed in order to avoid an increase of negative environmental impacts while trying to prevent negative socio-economic impacts. After an introduction and some insights into the environmental impacts of biofuels/bioenergy and bio-based products, this chapter presents the results of a SWOT analysis (analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), revealing trade-offs as well as positive and negative correlations between socio-economic and environmental impacts. These linkages are subsequently interpreted using the concept of ecosystem services. Finally, conclusions are drawn and a recommendation is made how the current list of mandatory sustainability criteria in the RED could be amended.