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.
Green Gold Label biomass are (residual) products of agricultural or forestry and related industries. The GGL biomass and recovered fuels consist of organic (vegetable) material from responsibly managed forestry, agricultural production and plantations in accordance to the Green Gold Label (GGL) standards. These standards cover all transactions of products produced, processed, prepared or bought for marketing purposes by operators participating in the Green Gold Label Programme.
The GGLS1 standard is intended for applicants of the GGL process certification. Applicants may be operators that trade and/or produce the final or half (finished) product of the biomass to enter the Green Gold Label program. In case the party is partly or completely outsourcing the production of the end products, the production units involved have to comply with the GGLS1 standard as well.
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