One of the most heatedly debated aspects of EU’s policy on biofuels in recent
times concern indirect land use change (ILUC) induced by the production of
biofuels. However, when the EU Renewable Energies Directive (RED) adopted in
2008, regulating ILUC was not considered for the time being. Ever since, the
fundamental conflicts on biofuels regarding their social and ecological
effects crystallize in the debates on ILUC, which is underpinned by the wide
range of results of scientific research on the topic. Starting from explaining
the concept of ILUC and from conceptual considerations regarding new ways of
knowledge production and its use in the policy process, we firstly trace the
policy process on biofuels’ ILUC with a special focus on the actors and their
stances in this context. Subsequently, mainly by document analysis, we give a
detailed overview of the research on biofuels’ ILUC, focusing on which actors
are related to the various ILUC studies and on what the relationship between
these actors and the studies’ orientations (methodologies, etc.) and outcomes
is. The analysis shows how the increase in ILUC research and its
characteristics can be related to the societal problems arising from biofuels
production, to the actors involved in it, and to their stakes in the issue.
This points to the social embeddedness of ILUC research into societal as well
as political practices and therefore – at least partly – qualifies it as a new
mode of knowledge production. Furthermore, it points to special role
scientific evidence plays regarding the policy process on the regulation of
ILUC in the EU. In this respect, our observations suggest that, on the one
hand, the scientific evidence on biofuels’ ILUC as well as the uncertainty and
complexity has been well perceived and taken up in the policy process. On the
other hand, however, its role has eventually been reduced to an instrumental
one, serving to legitimize and rationalize decisions agreed upon elsewhere
beforehand
