Determining the Benefits of Biomass: Who Wins, and Who Loses?

Abstract

Beyond the technical challenge of using biomass to achieve net zero, non-technical factors also impact the likelihood of biomass succeeding in displacing fossil fuel use, such as social, environmental, and economic challenges. The political bioeconomy in the United Kingdom (UK) has supported a small but significant role for biomass within the country’s energy mix, with policy determining who benefits, and who will continue to benefit, from its use. The revised UK Biomass Strategy of 2023 signalled how the government perceives biomass looking forward, and the commitment to a cross-sectoral sustainability framework has the potential to support a redistributive policy that creates new winners in the UK biomass sector. Maximising the redistributive effects of policy is hindered by the siloed nature of policymaking around biomass and undermined by a lack of social legitimacy, both of which must be addressed to enable biomass to contribute towards decoupling the UK’s economy from fossil fuels and to ensure a sustainable transition.