The proposed legislation rules out using biofuels produced on highly-biodiverse grasslands, deforested land or lands with a high carbon stock such as wetlands and grasslands, outline the authors.
"A ban on some biofuels is good because there is a natural tendency to take advantage of a bull market", the authors claim, referring to a tendency to expand production into new territories to cope with growing demand. "Rising demand for biofuels is encouraging farmers across the world to expand their cropland as much as the law and the market tolerate," the analysis elaborates.
The authors refer to South America, where soybean farmers and ranchers are "encroaching on the Amazon" and south-east Asia, where palm oil plantations are "continuing an alarming expansion across larger swathes of virgin forests and peatlands".
By realising that it is not growers but consumers who are most important in today's "raging biofuels market", sustainability standards gain crucial importance, the authors believe.
"People are interested in biofuels because they want to do something good for the planet – and if they realise that some of these fuels are linked to alarming social and environmental practices, the demand will dry up," according to Worldwatch.
Biofuels have many benefits, the paper says, such as reducing dependence on oil, keeping money and jobs in the local economy and reducing greenhouse gas impacts. However, it warns that the various benefits of biofuels vary "wildly" depending on the feedstock.
For example, US biodiesel produced from locally-grown soybeans is much more efficient and climate friendly than corn ethanol, the authors explain. What's more, sugar cane grown in Brazil brings "far higher" energy and climate benefits.
Next-generation biofuel crops produced with little water or fertiliser on dry or easily erodable soils may actually improve degraded soils and bring "far superior benefits" to even the best sugarcane ethanol, the authors state.
However, they warn that if such production does not aim to maximise social and environmental benefits, "they will have no more value than the dirtiest corn ethanol," the authors conclude.
"The only way forward for the market is to keep working on sustainability standards and accurate life-cycle measurements of the greenhouse gas impacts of a given biofuel." Without regulation and transparency the industry simply cannot live up to is promises of a cleaner and better future, Worldwatch believe.
If the differences between various biofuel crops are not recognised by the market then "there is no reason for a producer not to convert more land and throw more chemicals and water at the crop to make it grow," the analysis concludes.
