Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
We herewith inform you about updates in the ISCC System. Please share this information with all relevant members of staff.
1. German Sustainability Ordinances and Termination of ISCC DE
We herewith inform you that the German sustainability ordinances for biofuels (Biokraftstoff-Nachhaltigkeitsverordnung) (Biokraft-NachV) and electricity from biomass (Biomassestrom-Nachhaltigkeitsverordnung) (BioSt-NachV) have recently been amended. The amended laws were published on 02 December 2021 and came into effect on 08 December 2021. The option to recognize national certification schemes, i.e. the so-called “DE schemes” was deleted from both ordinances. This means that the legal basis for the ISCC DE scheme does not exist anymore. It will thus not be possible to become certified under the ISCC DE scheme as of 08 December 2021. ISCC DE certificates issued prior to 08 December 2021 remain valid until their official expiration date (see § 22 Biokraft-NachV and § 24 BioSt-NachV respectively). System users who are still using the ISCC DE certification e.g. to trade sustainable biofuels in Nabisy are recommended to bring the use of “DE certified” biofuels to an end as soon as possible. Since its start of operation in 2010, a total of 2492 certificates were issued under the ISCC DE scheme.
2. Information from the German BLE
2.1 BLE Evaluation and Progress Report 2020
The German Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (Bundesanstalt für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung – BLE) recently published the Evaluation and Progress Report 2020. In this report, the BLE summarises information on biofuels that were counted towards the quota in Germany for the year 2020. The report (currently only available in German) is available here.
2.2 Nabisy Update
The BLE has recently updated the German Nabisy database to align Nabisy with the adjusted sustainability ordinances (see item No. 1 above). Please find the respective information letter from Nabisy (dated 17 December 2021) here on the website of the BLE.
In addition to the information letter, the BLE clarified the following via email on 29 December 2021:
“As a follow-up to our information letter dated 17.12.2021, we are informing you today that there will be a small change in the csv format for uploading proofs. This change will take effect from the update on 03.01.2022. In the future, only seven | [the vertical bar or “pipe” symbol – note by ISCC] will be allowed in column AB (emissions), as the emissions for eee will be omitted. If you want to make the changes yourself, you will find the new texts for column AB below. However, you can also request an updated version of the complete file from the BLE, quoting your interface ID.
Emissions:
The individual components for calculating emissions are entered here in the following order:
eec|el|ep|etd|eu|esca|eccs|eccr
Please note that
1. eu is always to be set to 0
2. for cultivated biomass eec, ep and etd are mandatory fields
3. for non-agricultural waste and residues, ep and etd are mandatory fields, el and esca remain empty.”
2.3 Electricity Produced from Biomass
We herewith inform you about an information letter from the BLE that is relevant for operations producing electricity from biomass under the amended German sustainability ordinance for electricity from biomass (BioSt-NachV, also see item No. 1 above). The information letter (“Informationsschreiben zur Anspruchsvoraussetzung EEG-Zahlung und zur Eigenerklärung”, only available in German) and the respective self-declaration („Eigenerklärung“, only available in German) are available here on the website of the BLE.
3. Updates of ISCC Documents
ISCC EU List of Materials
ISCC has revised the “ISCC list of material eligible for ISCC EU certification”. This was done to incorporate an amendment to the wording of the ‘additional information’ for animal by-products to include other operations that may generate animal by-products.
In addition, the following material has been added to the section “Intermediate and Final Products”: Co-processed oil to be used for replacement of marine fuel.
Please note that both ISCC (EU and PLUS) lists of materials can be amended. In case a material should be certified which is not listed yet, please note that ISCC must be contacted prior to the issuance of the certificate via info@iscc-system.org.
The updated version of the ISCC EU list of materials (as of 19 January 2022) is available here in the client section of the ISCC website (login required).