Working Group on Biomass Sustainability in Tsukuba, Japan

The WG meeting was held on December 5-6, 2012, at AIST Tsukuba West (Japan). The participants were 9 WG members (Drs. and Profs. Sagisaka, Kudoh, Chen, Elauria, Shabbir, Udin, Sadamichi, Sharma and Shi) and 2 observers from AIST Mr. Tamada and Dr. Thapat, JGSEE-KMUTT, Thailand.

The objective of this WG meeting was to discuss directions and tasks of WG activities of both this year and the future in order to complete and disseminate the ERIA WG methodology. The ERIA WG methodology was developed in the past WG activities so that it could assess sustainability of biomass utilisation for energy and materials in East Asian countries. In the meeting, the WG set the future goal of the WG activities and decided to disseminate the ERIA WG methodology by way of holding workshops or training courses in East Asian countries. Toward this goal, as a work for the phase of 2012-2013, the WG decided to include more sustainability indicators that are of particular importance for East Asian countries and then to incorporate all the past outcomes of the WG activities into "Guideline to Assess Sustainability of Biomass Utilisation in East Asia 2013", that is an updated version of the guideline published in 2008. As a work for the phase of 2013-2014, the WG agreed that the WG will conduct a variety of case studies to apply this guideline and publish a booklet that illustrates how to apply the methodology and sustainability indicators in envisioned biomass utilisations of East Asian countries.

The WG successfully determined the future goal of the WG activities and concrete images of the WG's work for achievement of the goal.