131
First of all, the lack of government’s committed mandate and/or deployment
strategy is causing confusion on the side of potential exporters. For instance,
Japanese government has expressed its interest in importing palm-based biodiesels
from Indonesia particularly during the visit of Prime Minister and other senior officials to Jakarta. Such informal encouragements had certain influence among the
biodiesel producers. On the other hand, Japan has not yet imported a sizable amount
of biodiesel from Indonesia. A few stakeholders, including those in Brazil, explicitly expressed their frustration with the lack of more formal commitment on the
Japanese side. Therefore, it would be beneficial for all stakeholders in this field if
the Japanese government sets official target regarding the import of biofuels.
Secondly, as mentioned above, the lack of appropriate transportation infrastructures in these countries could be a major bottleneck for importation. This is an area
in which the Japanese government can assist through developmental aid and other
schemes to fund infrastructure development projects. The Japanese government and
aid agencies can be strategic in selecting the applications by considering proposed
projects’ implication to the transport of biofuel to Japan and other parts of the world.
The last concern about the Japanese government is its sustainability standard.
While it is an area where scholars and stakeholders are still debating about, one
pragmatic proposal would be to internalize sustainability standards, such as the one
proposed by Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, into Japanese regulatory structure. While some NGOs are still critical about the utilization of biofuels at the global
scale, such a strategy could justify the biodiesel import to some extent because these
international efforts have consciously involved nongovernmental stakeholders and
tried to seek an agreement that these concerned parties could live with.
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial 2.5 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/),
which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any
medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source,
provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative
Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by
statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from
the copyright holder.
9 Social, Economic, and Political Impacts
First of all, the lack of government’s committed mandate and/or deployment
strategy is causing confusion on the side of potential exporters. For instance,
Japanese government has expressed its interest in importing palm-based biodiesels
from Indonesia particularly during the visit of Prime Minister and other senior officials to Jakarta. Such informal encouragements had certain influence among the
biodiesel producers. On the other hand, Japan has not yet imported a sizable amount
of biodiesel from Indonesia. A few stakeholders, including those in Brazil, explicitly expressed their frustration with the lack of more formal commitment on the
Japanese side. Therefore, it would be beneficial for all stakeholders in this field if
the Japanese government sets official target regarding the import of biofuels.
Secondly, as mentioned above, the lack of appropriate transportation infrastructures in these countries could be a major bottleneck for importation. This is an area
in which the Japanese government can assist through developmental aid and other
schemes to fund infrastructure development projects. The Japanese government and
aid agencies can be strategic in selecting the applications by considering proposed
projects’ implication to the transport of biofuel to Japan and other parts of the world.
The last concern about the Japanese government is its sustainability standard.
While it is an area where scholars and stakeholders are still debating about, one
pragmatic proposal would be to internalize sustainability standards, such as the one
proposed by Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, into Japanese regulatory structure. While some NGOs are still critical about the utilization of biofuels at the global
scale, such a strategy could justify the biodiesel import to some extent because these
international efforts have consciously involved nongovernmental stakeholders and
tried to seek an agreement that these concerned parties could live with.
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial 2.5 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/),
which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any
medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source,
provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative
Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by
statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from
the copyright holder.
9 Social, Economic, and Political Impacts