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 REA response to the OXFAM report on Biofuels |
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Submitted: 1 November 2007 |
| The REA welcomes the OXFAM report on biofuels published on 1 November. |
| It is quite right that an NGO like OXFAM, dedicated to eliminating poverty in the developing world should point to potential dangers for the world’s poorest people in the development of any new industry. Nevertheless, OXFAM rightly identifies the growing of feedstocks for biofuels as offering “important opportunities for poverty reduction by stimulating stagnant agricultural sectors” and that biofuels should “offer new market and livelihood opportunities”. |
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The REA agrees with OXFAM’s conclusion that social principles should be embedded in our biofuels policy. That is why we have worked closely with the UK Government in drawing up a sustainability scheme under the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation which sets out the key social principles against which all biofuels supplied in the UK must be measured. These principles cover – working conditions, workers’ rights, contracts, freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, child labour and young workers, health and safety, wages and compensation, discrimination, forced labour, land rights issues and consultation and communication with local stakeholders.
The REA will continue to play its part in ensuring that biofuels supplied into the UK have been produced in accordance with these principles.
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Please see the REA response to the Department for Transport Consultation on Carbon and Sustainability reporting under the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) below.
Also below a link to the Oxfam report.
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 Related Web Site(s) |
REA response to the Department for Transport Consultation on Carbon and Sustainability reporting under the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO)
www.r-e-a.net/article_default_view.fcm?articleid=2734
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Oxfam Report
www.oxfam.org.uk/applications/blogs/pressoffice/2007/11/biofuelling_poverty . .
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