The burning of fossil fuels such as diesel oil, petrol, gas and coal contributes to a strong increase of CO2 in the air, which causes the earths air temperature to rise. This greenhouse effect will in turn cause climate changes, with potential disastrous (natural) consequences.
Partly due to international agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol and recently the Copenhagen Convention, European policy is aimed at an increase in the use of renewable fuels in order to decrease fossil CO2 emissions. In order to replace the use of fossil fuels with the use of biomass in a sustainable manner, a quality insurance system is needed to make sure and to guarantee the sustainability and environment friendliness of the biomass.
One does not want to harm the environment in order to save it, e.g. doing lasting damage such as illegal timbering and creating wastelands all in the name of "reducing the fossil CO2 emission and saving the environment".
CU can offer two sustainable biomass certification standards:
The Green Gold Label programme is a certification system for sustainable biomass. It includes the production, processing, transport and the final energy transformation. This system was developed by Essent, one of the major Dutch producers and suppliers of sustainable energy. The system is currently owned by the independent Green Gold Label foundation.
The Green Gold Label quality system (GGL) aims at a track and trace system for biomass from (by-) products from the power plant (and the green power it produces) back to the sustainable source. In this system mixing or contamination with non-intrinsic or environmentally harmful materials is prohibited. In every link of the chain written proof must be available that the GGL quality system is supported, sustained and maintained.This track and trace system features certification (of the source, suppliers and production) and inspection of transport and storage. Certificates of cleanliness are checked for transportation and storage. A Greenhouse Gas Emission calculation is part of the GGL standard.
The quality system of GGL certified products is focussed on a tracing system for biomass from (residual) products (and its energy produced) back to the sustainable source.
The proven sustainability of the biomass is realised in the GGL system by the following:
- declarations of certified suppliers which are verified,
- a certified chain management system at the supplier’s end,
- certificates pertaining sustainability of sources,
- certificates of clean shipment and clean storage and transport space,
- transaction certificates that guarantee that claims of GGL-approved sustainability of the shipment have been made rightfully.
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