Abstract:
Energy crops have been intensely considered as part of the solution for climate change mitigation and for energy security. Among low-carbon technologies, sugarcane ethanol stands out as one of the most promising biofuel. Internal and external driving forces (flex-fuel market and international emission commitments) highlighted sugarcane ethanol as one of the main topic in the Brazilian energy agenda. At the same time sugarcane ethanol stands out as a sustainable way of partially reducing fossil fuel consumption, which contributes to global warming via greenhouse gases emission, uncertainties over the significance of environmental impacts caused by the expansion of sugarcane crops remain. Considering the need of corroborating the sustainability of the expansion of sugarcane crops, government and the private sector, mainly in the State of São Paulo which is the main national producer, have been established procedures and have been adopted best practices to reduce environmental impacts, such as Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and the Green Ethanol Project, which includes the Agri-environmental Protocol and the Agri-environmental Zoning for the sugar and ethanol sector of the State of São Paulo. Nonetheless, while EIA has an appropriate application to project scale and the Green Ethanol Project presents guidelines and environmental goals for the expansion of sugarcane crops, there is a gap in the environmental assessment of plans and programs of this expansion. In this context, the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) has been considered the most appropriate instrument to demonstrate the sustainability of the expansion of sugarcane crops area. This is due to the possibility of introducing environmental aspects in the planning process. This article presents a methodological procedure to apply SEA tool for the expansion of sugarcane crops area for ethanol production. This first approach, based on the international best practices, can be integrated to the planning process of the sugar and ethanol sector, via the Energy Decennial Plan (EDP), in its forthcoming revisions.
Reference:
GALLARDO, Amarilis Lucia Casteli Figueiredo; SANTOS, Wellington Gomes dos; BRAGA, Tania de Oliveira; DUARTE, Carla Grigoletto; SOUZA, Caroline Almeida de; DIBO, Ana Paula; SILVA, Ana Paula de Souza; CERMINARO, Ana Clara; SOLERA, Maria Lucia; CAMPANHA, Vilma Alves; TERREL, Deborah; ROMAGNANO, Ligia Ferrari Torella di. Sustentabilidade ambiental da expansão do cultivo de cana-de-açúcar para produção de etanol no Brasil: o papel do AAE. In: CONGRESSO BRASILEIRO DE AVALIAÇÃO DE IMPACTO AMBIENTAL, 1.; CONFERÊNCIA DA REDE DA LÍNGUA PORTUGUESA DE AVALIAÇÃO DE IMPACTOS, 2., 2012, São Paulo. Anais… São Paulo: ABAI, 2012. 14 p.
Energy crops have been intensely considered as part of the solution for climate change mitigation and for energy security. Among low-carbon technologies, sugarcane ethanol stands out as one of the most promising biofuel. Internal and external driving forces (flex-fuel market and international emission commitments) highlighted sugarcane ethanol as one of the main topic in the Brazilian energy agenda. At the same time sugarcane ethanol stands out as a sustainable way of partially reducing fossil fuel consumption, which contributes to global warming via greenhouse gases emission, uncertainties over the significance of environmental impacts caused by the expansion of sugarcane crops remain. Considering the need of corroborating the sustainability of the expansion of sugarcane crops, government and the private sector, mainly in the State of São Paulo which is the main national producer, have been established procedures and have been adopted best practices to reduce environmental impacts, such as Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and the Green Ethanol Project, which includes the Agri-environmental Protocol and the Agri-environmental Zoning for the sugar and ethanol sector of the State of São Paulo. Nonetheless, while EIA has an appropriate application to project scale and the Green Ethanol Project presents guidelines and environmental goals for the expansion of sugarcane crops, there is a gap in the environmental assessment of plans and programs of this expansion. In this context, the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) has been considered the most appropriate instrument to demonstrate the sustainability of the expansion of sugarcane crops area. This is due to the possibility of introducing environmental aspects in the planning process. This article presents a methodological procedure to apply SEA tool for the expansion of sugarcane crops area for ethanol production. This first approach, based on the international best practices, can be integrated to the planning process of the sugar and ethanol sector, via the Energy Decennial Plan (EDP), in its forthcoming revisions.
Reference:
GALLARDO, Amarilis Lucia Casteli Figueiredo; SANTOS, Wellington Gomes dos; BRAGA, Tania de Oliveira; DUARTE, Carla Grigoletto; SOUZA, Caroline Almeida de; DIBO, Ana Paula; SILVA, Ana Paula de Souza; CERMINARO, Ana Clara; SOLERA, Maria Lucia; CAMPANHA, Vilma Alves; TERREL, Deborah; ROMAGNANO, Ligia Ferrari Torella di. Sustentabilidade ambiental da expansão do cultivo de cana-de-açúcar para produção de etanol no Brasil: o papel do AAE. In: CONGRESSO BRASILEIRO DE AVALIAÇÃO DE IMPACTO AMBIENTAL, 1.; CONFERÊNCIA DA REDE DA LÍNGUA PORTUGUESA DE AVALIAÇÃO DE IMPACTOS, 2., 2012, São Paulo. Anais… São Paulo: ABAI, 2012. 14 p.
