The Sustainability Impacts of Fuel: A Paper from the Future of Fuels Working Group

Any treatment of fuel and sustainability requires consideration of climate change and the dangers it poses to global well-being.

Because of these concerns, we have seen an increase in demands for substantial shifts in policy, business practices, and consumer behavior to change our energy mix.

At the same time, there is intense pressure to restart economic progress and raise global standards of living—which will mean an increase in our global fuel use. Despite these pressures, there is a dearth of analysis on the total life-cycle impacts and trade-offs of both current and emerging fuel sources.

This paper, from BSR’s Future of Fuels working group, examines the sustainability impacts of fuels, synthesizing what is known and not known using a value chain (or life-cycle) perspective. It then considers the future market outlook for fuels, and explores some of the factors necessary for major changes and improvements to take place.