The Rise and Decline of the EU's 'Sustainable Biofuel'-Policy

In early 2015, the European Union is close to the completion of a radical change in its environmental policy: a winding down of its promotion of conventional biofuels. This paper attempts to explain this policy-change by focusing on the strategic use of the EU's normative commitment to advance 'sustainable development'. This norm was first central to legitimate and push through the promotion of biofuels, but currently the same norm is also used to delegitimate the existing policies. I will argue that central to this puzzling norm- and policy-change are the years 2007-8, when new studies questioned evidence that was used to sustain the idea that biofuels are sustainable. The new uncertainty was then successfully used by NGOS and IOs to creatively re-constructed the questioned relation between the sustainability-norm and biofuels as one of contradiction. This left the policy-drivers with no other choice but to renounce their own policy.