By Elizabeth Fortin, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow University of Bristol

Over the last decade, dramatic growth in the production of biofuels across the globe has been supported by domestic, bilateral and intergovernmental policy instruments. The consequential dominance of agri-business multi-national companies in global agricultural production systems has led to increasing foreign direct investment in land in developing countries. However, concerns have been raised in relation to the threat of land alienation for smallholders as well as adverse environmental and socio-economic impacts of large-scale biofuels production. In responding to such concerns, the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels is a high profile multi-stakeholder initiative to formulate sustainability standards that are to regulate the production process. This paper introduces research that is to explore the process of formulating the standards. It will discuss how dimensions of power affect relations between actors involved in or affected by the biofuels industry as they participate in its regulation. It will consider how multiple stakeholders in a global arena may work together in producing knowledge in the face of highly contested narratives.