Vegetal fuel and recycled oil: are biofuels really sustainable?

Narratives

Verificat has reviewed the communications of several political lobbying initiatives promoting biofuels at both the continental and Spanish levels, such as Tour d’Europe and Plataforma para los Combustibles Renovables (Platform for Renewable Fuels), as well as the websites of five of the largest oil companies in the EU (Shell, TotalEnergies, Eni, Repsol and Moeve, formerly Cepsa), to characterise their messages on the subject. These are the three largest companies in the sector with roots in the EU, according to Forbes’ Global 2000 list, and the two leading Spanish entities. 

The communication campaigns of these entities use generally vague and unspecific concepts that make factual verification difficult because, strictly speaking, they do not include falsehoods. Yet, they promote a vast optimism towards biofuels with messages mainly highlighting their positive aspects, without mentioning their limitations and controversies. The four main narratives they use are also present in social media, as revealed by the analysis of messages on this subject on X (formerly Twitter), where they contribute to the idealisation of these products. Some social media users take this idea a step further and vow for biofuels as a current, real and more sustainable alternative to electrification for road transport decarbonisation, sometimes using debunked misinformation to make their points.

Feelings towards biofuels are highly polarised in X and reveal a lack of knowledge on the subject. In parallel to the idealistic messaging, posts that completely demonise their environmental and social impact are also common, usually falling onto an imprecise generalisation that considers all biofuels to be first generation (i.e., made out of edible crops).

The most optimistic messages are also finding their way into European politics, through countries that defend this supposed alternative for achieving decarbonisation.

The message changes depending on the source

By reviewing the words most commonly used by both lobby groups and companies on their websites when talking about biofuels, it is possible to reconstruct a shared message: that these fuels are a renewable energy source, reducing emissions and promoting a circular system at two levels (the life cycle of biofuels themselves and the type of economy they promote), focusing on the reuse of waste as raw material (i.e., they focus on the exploitation of second-generation biofuels).

On social network X, meanwhile, there is little conversation about biofuels. The EFCSN fact-checkers have not analysed any information related to the topic so far this year, according to the publications compiled in the EuroClimateCheck repository, of which Verificat is a member. To prepare this report, we analysed 170 Spanish messages that explicitly included the term ‘biofuels’ in the first seven months of 2025.

Often, these publications use similar terminology to that of oil companies, but with added distortion and, often, ignorance. The main commonality in part of the messaging is the general framework: they are presented as fuels that contribute to reducing emissions and are directly related to renewable energies.

The polarisation is palpable when analysing the sentiment of these messages. Some are mainly idealistic, presenting these fuels as a current and viable alternative to the electrification of land transport. They also sometimes argue that electric vehicles are more polluting than fossil fuels and claim that they are dangerous because they catch fire easily. Both are misleading arguments that have been previously disproved by Verificat, as well as by other EFCSN members as Ostro or Maldita. We have also found examples of techno-optimism, which defend the idea that any scientific discovery about a new way of obtaining biofuels can be translated into a viable, scalable and applicable option today.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are publications that highlight the problems associated with first-generation biofuels, such as deforestation and rising food prices, and generalise them by applying them to all alternative fuels. In other words, many of the profiles analysed understand that all biofuels use food as raw material.

In the political arena, we have also observed, on some occasions, the use of terminology similar to that used in corporate digital communications. This is the case in Italy, which is leading an international initiative to promote these products, and in the European People’s Party, which considers that they ‘play a role in reducing CO2 emissions’. In Spain, both political bodies, such as the Ministry for Ecological Transition, and leaders of parties such as the People’s Party, have also supported them in joint events with the major oil companies.

These are the main verified narratives: 

Biofuels are a renewable and sustainable fuel

A common feature of the oil industry’s communications about biofuels is that they are often paired with words like ‘renewable’ or ‘sustainable.’ These are adjectives that are also used by public bodies such as the European Commission and the International Energy Agency (IEA), as well as Italian and Spanish political figures. In fact, Repsol’s press office refers to the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) to justify that it is ‘renewable energy’, because the directive defines it as energy that comes from various sources, including ‘biomass, landfill gas, sewage treatment plant gas, and biogas’. However, these expressions need to be contextualised, because they require very specific technical conditions to be met. 

According to the United Nations, renewable energies derive ‘from natural sources that are replenished at a higher rate than they are consumed’. The organisation cites the sun, wind and bioenergy as examples, although it points out that the latter ‘should only be used in limited applications, given potential negative environmental impacts related to large-scale increases in forest and bioenergy plantations, and resulting deforestation and land-use change’. 

This is the point emphasised by the researchers interviewed by Verificat, who warn that whether biofuels can be considered renewable depends on the quantity and rate at which they are consumed. Unlike wind or sunlight, biomass (the raw material that produces these fuels) is finite: producing large amounts of first-generation biofuel can encourage deforestation, according to a study by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), and the waste available to produce second-generation biofuels is limited.

In line with this, there are initiatives such as Repsol’s, which offers its customers in different autonomous communities in Spain discounts on refuelling if they deliver used cooking oil to collection points made available at its petrol stations for recycling. However, the NGO Transport & Environment stated in a 2024 report that European countries consumed eight times more used cooking oil to make biodiesel in 2023 than their maximum collection potential, making imports essential. Both the IEA and the European Court of Auditors noted in separate reports that much of this raw material used in Europe comes from Asia, particularly China. 

‘The word “renewable” should not only refer to whether the resource becomes available again within a certain period of time, but also to what environmental cost,’ says climate communicator and doctor of biodiversity Andreu Escrivà. 

The expert is also critical of the concept of ‘sustainable’, which he considers meaningless in his book Contra la sostenibilidad (Against Sustainability). The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE, for its acronym in Spanish) defines it as ‘that which can be maintained over a long period of time without depleting resources or causing serious damage to the environment’. This concept, extended to ‘sustainable development’, was defined in 1987, according to the European Union, and refers to ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. As with the concept of ‘renewable’, in the case of biofuels this condition is only met if the rate of extraction and production respects the natural rates of biomass regeneration. Otherwise, resources will be depleted.

Biofuels are clean fuels; they do not pollute or pollute very little

Another key narrative is to define biofuels as products that do not emit CO₂ (or do so in very limited quantities), and are therefore considered ‘carbon neutral’ or ‘clean energy’ if they comply with European directives. This promise appears in both the Tour d’Europe and Plataforma para los Combustibles Renovables (Platform for Renewable Fuels) initiatives, as well as on most of the websites of the five major oil companies analysed. The TotalEnergies press office points out that biofuels emit more than 50% less CO₂ than their fossil fuel equivalents over their life cycle, which, according to them, makes them a partial route to decarbonisation for liquid fuels.

Repsol, for its part, claims in its website that one of the strengths of this product is that it reduces emissions because ‘the CO₂ released during its use is equal to the CO₂ absorbed by the organic matter from which it is derived during its useful life’. Moeve describes them as ‘the current solution for decarbonising transport’. Their press department adds the claim is based in their ability to reduce up to 90% of net CO₂ emissions compared to fossil fuels over their whole life cycle. Shell considers them key in the transition ‘towards net zero emissions’ and, in its strategy report for the energy transition for 2024, includes them among ‘low-carbon products’. 

The idea is also supported by the European People’s Party in its proposal to ‘secure the competitiveness of the European automotive industry’. It calls for exemptions for biofuels and other alternative fuels in the ban on the sale of now combustion engine cars and vans by 2035. This proposal is backed by the German Association of the Automotive Industry, which, in a statement, called for greater focus on ‘renewable fuels’ ‘considering their average impact on CO₂ reduction’. Poland and the Czech Republic support the revision of the law, according to Reuters and Politico, but we have not found any recent specific communications on biofuels.

Polish MEP Dariusz Joński cited both infrastructure and economic challenges to ask for a relaxation of the ban. He sees it as an unrealistic plan, according to local media (1, 2, 3) made available to Verificat by Demagog, a Polish fact-checking agency part of EFCSN. His arguments are similar to the ones defended by the Polish Automotive Association.

It is true that biofuels can emit much less CO₂ than fossil fuels, but they are by no means a zero-emission product. When this type of fuel is burned, vehicles release into the atmosphere an amount of carbon dioxide similar to that stored by the organic matter from which they originate during their growth. In other words, on paper, the balance is zero: as much CO₂ is emitted as is captured. However, this comparison only scratches the surface, because biofuels emit greenhouse gases even before they are burned.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Climate Portal and experts consulted by Verificat point out that, when measuring emissions from these fuels, it is essential to include those associated with their production, transport and processing, among others. In other words, their entire life cycle must be analysed. This ‘includes emissions from the farm machinery used to harvest them [the raw materials], the gasoline burned to move them to a processing facility and, in some cases, it can also include the fossil fuels used to run the processing plant’, according to MIT.

Taking all these factors into account, in the best-case scenario, biofuels can reduce emissions by up to ‘80-85%’ compared to traditional fuels, according to Jordi Guilera from IREC, in conversation with Verificat. This reduction is lower in the case of first-generation biofuels and higher in second-generation biofuels, but it varies greatly depending on the raw material used and the study evaluating it, as reflected in various systematic reviews (1, 2). There is no consensus on a specific figure, and when there is deforestation and land use change, emissions can be even higher than in the case of oil. Therefore, claiming biofuels reduce emissions compared to fossil fuels is not always precise, as this depends on its origin and production.

Is that enough to consider them a ‘clean fuel’ or to say that they produce ‘clean energy’? The International Energy Forum defines the concept as ‘energy made without causing harm to the environment’, while MIT talks about ‘energy sources that produce no climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions’. The university includes biofuels here only ‘in some circumstances’, and newspaper articles such as this one from the Associated Press consider that, to be considered as such, they must be made from ‘waste or inedible vegetation, with renewable energy to power the production, and have little or no greenhouse gas emissions’.

The terms have another meaning for the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the household context. The organisation considers clean fuels to be ‘those that attain the fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) and carbon monoxide (CO) levels recommended in the WHO global air quality guidelines (2021)’ for heating, cooking and lighting. In general terms, these are fuels that do not emit pollutants. 

However, available evidence shows that biofuels produce local pollution on a similar scale to conventional fuels when burned, as pointed out by José Ramón Galán-Mascarós, an ICREA researcher at the Catalan Institute for Chemical Research (ICIQ), who investigates the applications of inorganic materials for renewable energies. If large quantities of biofuel are burned in a given area, for example, a city, pollution will increase significantly there, even though globally the balance will be neutral, he explains. ‘Atmospherically, it has no impact, but in the city it does,’ he says.

This is illustrated by a review of the available evidence carried out by the UK Air Quality Expert Group, which assessed whether the use of biofuels reduced local pollution. The study concluded that blending them with petrol or diesel at up to 15% has little effect on air quality: in other words, burning biofuels still emits pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide and particulate matter (PM), among others, which traditional fuels also emit and are known to be harmful to health.

Biofuels promote the local circular economy

Another common narrative among pressure groups and oil companies is that biofuels represent a great opportunity to reduce energy dependence by promoting local production and replacing foreign raw materials. The idea of energy independence is also echoed in European and national institutions, especially since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the launch of plans such as REPowerEU, which aimed to ‘phase out Russian fossil fuel imports’, currently frozen by sanctions.

However, data from the Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition illustrates how, despite the fact that most biofuels used in Spain are produced in the country or in its European neighbours, a large part of the raw materials used to manufacture them come from outside the EU, especially from Asia. An IEA report points out that the situation is similar in Germany and the Netherlands: these are countries that export more biodiesel than they import, but use raw materials from China to produce it. In fact, the EU has imposed duties on Chinese biodiesel imports in order to prevent dumping or unfair competition.

In the case of bioethanol, the IEA notes that the raw materials tend to come from North American corn. 

For its part, the European Court of Auditors concludes in its analysis of European biofuel policies that ‘dependence on feedstock imports has increased due to the rising demand for biomass over the years,’ and criticises the EU because ‘the targets for renewable fuels are set without taking into account the available biomass from sustainable sources’.

Biofuels are a current, scalable and inexpensive solution

Another key message is that these fuels are a real and viable solution that can already be implemented today. It is a solution that also requires little investment in new infrastructure, because vehicle engines are already compatible and biofuels can be purchased at existing petrol stations. The Italian company Eni, for example, states on its website that biofuels ‘can be used in transport to partially or entirely replace traditional fossil fuels’. 

Biofuels have already contributed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union, according to an analysis by the European Environment Agency: specifically, by 5.6% between 2010 and 2022 (and by 4% if we take into account emissions generated by land use changes). In fact, they currently contribute more than electricity in the transport sector, both at European and national level. 

However, transport is the only sector that has continued to increase its overall emissions in Europe over the last decade, and the use of biofuels is still very marginal. It has stabilised at around 6.5% since 2020, according to data collected by Eurostat up to 2022. Increasing this figure is a challenge limited by the complicated scalability of the sector, according to the aforementioned report by the European Court of Auditors: ‘Sustainability issues, biomass availability and costs are limiting the deployment of biofuels’.

According to the Corporación de Reservas Estratégicas de Productos Petrolíferos (CORES, for its acronym in Spanish), the public body that guarantees security of energy supply in Spain, 57 million litres of oil were consumed in the country in 2023, while ‘the largest [biofuel] projects in Spain […] estimate up to 3,850,000 tonnes of biofuel production per year’, according to a report by Ecodes. Crossing the two figures, state supply would account for only 7% of demand. CORES notes that biofuels accounted for 3.65% of petrol and 7.99% of diesel consumed in 2024, with the most recent data.

José Ramón Galán-Mascarós, ICREA researcher at ICIQ, points to the difficulty of making the technology economically viable, especially compared to petrol and diesel, which have historically been supported by large infrastructures and financially backed by public and private bodies. In the case of biofuels, ‘when you start scaling up technologies you have a problem, because the public funds say that this has to be done by private funds, and the private funds say they don’t see clearly whether they will lose money or not’, he concludes.

TotalEnergies’ press office tells Verificat that access to raw materials (plants, waste, sugar, etc.) remains a barrier to growth. Shell refers to its internal statistics, which show that demand in the passenger road sector is still very low. 

The false dichotomy between electrification and biofuels

X (formerly Twitter) is full of posts presenting biofuels as the alternative that the EU should opt for in order to decarbonise European mobility, to the detriment of electric vehicles. Indeed, many of these messages are accompanied by misinformation narratives about electric vehicles such as that they burn more or pollute more than fossil fuels, both widely debunked by the European fact-checking community. This idea is not explicitly stated on oil companies’ websites, but rather is an inference made by users on social media based on the sustainability they attribute to biofuels.

In other words, what the messages in X are posing is a false dichotomy between the electrification of mobility and the use of biofuels, i.e. a scenario in which only one of the two approaches can prevail. In reality, both the EU and the experts consulted by Verificat advocate an energy mix in which biofuels —together with synthetic fuels and other alternatives— help to reduce emissions in sectors that are difficult to decarbonise, such as aviation, maritime transport and freight transport, while the fleet of cars and vans is being electrified.

Some of the companies analysed even explain that their commitment is not exclusive and that biofuels will be mainly focused on transport that cannot be electrified. Shell, in its strategy report for the energy transition for 2024, states that it expects rapid growth in electric vehicles and believes that ‘biofuels and natural gas will also play a role in reducing emissions from heavy-duty transport’.

In fact, researchers are calling for a further shift in European initiatives, not only to promote electric mobility, but also to reduce the vehicle fleet. If every family goes from having one combustion engine car to two or three electric cars, ‘everything we gain in efficiency we lose in volume,’ argued Olga Alcaraz, a member of the Institute for Research in Science and Technology for Sustainability (CITES) at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), in an interview with Verificat in 2024

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the field’s maximum authority, points in a 2022 report that electric vehicles using low carbon electricity (i.e., solar, wind or nuclear), is the technology with the highest potential to reduce transport emissions. Nevertheless, the group also vows for systemic changes, as adapting cities to a better connectivity, invest in public transportation, cycle lanes and walkable zones, or promoting telework and shared mobility. The report mentions biofuels for road transport as a “mitigation” strategy for the short and middle term.

This report was funded by the European Climate Foundation in partnership with the European Fact-Checking and Standards Network (EFCSN).