Carbon Footprint and Climate Change Mitigation Potential of Cocobiodiesel in the Philippines

Coco-biodiesel is the only type of biodiesel currently being produced in the country as a response to the biodiesel blending mandate under the Biofuels Law. The blending mandate was supposed to increase from 2% to 5% in 2015, however, due to feedstocks concern, the said increase has not yet been implemented to-date. Other than increasing the country’s selfsufficiency, the Biofuels Law has other equally significant objectives which could promote the increase in biodiesel blending in the coming years. One of which is the mitigation of toxic and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This study revealed that pure coconut methyl ester or cocobiodiesel in the Philippine setting has a carbon footprint or global warming potential of 38,976.87 ton CO2e for every 30 million liters per year (MLPY) or 39.34 gCO2e/MJ, which is 53.05% lower than the carbon footprint of diesel (fossil fuel). For 2016 alone, 2% and 5% biodiesel blending has a potential GHG savings or avoided GHG emissions equal to 241,736.20 tonsCO2e yr-1 and 604,335.49 tonsCO2e yr-1, respectively. These findings suggest that mandating the use of coco-biodiesel reduces the GHG emissions in the Philippine transport sector – an effort in line with the governments’ thrust of mitigating climate change and being one of the active parties of the Paris Agreement for Climate Change.