ABSTRACT
According to the “three-pillar” model of sustainability discussed in Chapter 1, economics constitutes one of the three pillars, alongside social and environmental sustainability. However, when sustainable bioenergy or sustainable biofuels are discussed in the popular media or in campaigns by NGOs, economics can sometimes seem like the forgotten pillar. To those outside the bioenergy sector, discourses around “making biofuels sustainable” or “preventing unsustainable impacts from energy cropping” tend to revolve around environmental and social concerns such as deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, food security and land rights. In this context, energy cropping is often viewed as a threatening process that needs to be controlled, with the question of whether or not it is economically viable being a secondary consideration.
