FuelsEurope welcomes the IEA report introducing life-cycle assessment in road transport modes, and emphasises the need of an LCA assessment in all available powertrains in road[...]

FuelsEurope welcomes the publication by the International Energy Agency (IEA) at the very end of the past year, of its report "EV Battery Supply Chain Sustainability: Life cycle impacts and the role of recycling", and acknowledges the IEA's initial life-cycle assessment (LCA) of the CO₂ footprint of electric powertrains (EVs).

We also appreciate the recognition of the value of sustainable biofuels in the introduction on the second part of the report, since the LCA findings clearly show that conventional fuels are not a viable long-term solution to decarbonise transport.

Liana Gouta, Director General FuelsEurope, stated "We acknowledge the value of this interesting IEA report, which sets the scene for a Life Cycle Analysis when evaluating new technologies aimed at reducing CO2 emissions in road transport. The report suggests a right framework for such assessments, it is however limited to comparing electric powertrains with conventional fossil fuels used in internal combustion engines. Unfortunately, a similar comparison for renewable fuels used with ICEs is not included in the report. We hope the IEA addresses this in future publications and we look forward to contributing to this dialogue."

FuelsEurope believes that renewable fuels represent an opportunity to contribute to the transport decarbonisation objective, complementing electrification efforts.

To that end, FuelsEurope is ready to share with the IEA its similar online LCA tools for all powertrain options "CO₂ Cars Comparator for LDVs" and "HDV CO₂ comparator for HDVs" and collaborate further on assessing all available road transport decarbonisation options.