The 2nd Workshop on Sustainability Assesment of Biomass Utilisation in East Asia was held on 12-13 February 2011 at AIST Tsukuba West in Japan. Participants were 11 WG members (Drs. and Profs. Sagisaka, Chen, Elauria, Shabbir, Udin, Khoo, Konishi, Jane, Sadamichi, Sharma, Shi and Kudoh) and 3 observers from AIST (Drs. Yamada, Genchi and Kamahara).

The objectives of this WG meeting is to share the experiences and lessons learned from 4 pilot studies conducted in FY2009-2010 and to discuss how to upgrade our methodology developed to assess the sustainability by biomass utilisation.

4 pilot study managers gave their experiences and lessons learned from the pilot studies and all the participants discussed issues to be considered to expand our methodology. Although our methodology developed was suitable for assessing the sustainability of biomass energy utilisation, the WG had agreed to modify and upgrade the methodology based upon the lessons learned: (a) To provide the indices for different levels e.g. for macro (national) to micro (community, pilot sites) level, (b) To include the concept of time axis (short ~ long term assessments), (c) To include aspects other than GHG emission to environment aspect, (d) To simplify the index for decision makers for economic aspect, and (e) To discuss other indices than HDI that can capture the social impact directly by the target level (job creation, access to modern and clean energy, energy security, etc.)

The WG agreed to summarize the WG report by 31 May 2011 based upon the discussions. As a whole, the WG meeting was very fruitful.