Brazil needs to do more to convince consumers of ethanol’s benefits if it wants to boost demand for the biofuel, according to Kristell Guizouarn, global sustainability director at Tereos Group.
“I think we need to do some pedagogy to explain that ethanol has a major role to play in energy transition”, said Guizouarn.
Consumer skepticism in Brazil today resembles attitudes toward biofuels in France 15 years ago, Guizouarn said in an interview with The AgriBiz. That poses a challenge in a country where about 85% of the vehicle fleet is flex-fuel but ethanol demand has struggled to respond even when prices are competitive with gasoline.
“People used to say, ‘It will damage our engines’ or ‘It will have a negative impact,’” Guizouarn said. “That’s behind us in Europe. The work done over the years has shown there were no technical problems with cars. I think we need to educate consumers and explain that.”
The case for ethanol should increasingly focus on its role in decarbonization and as an alternative to fossil fuels, she said. In France, that message came from several parts of the industry, including automakers.
E85, a fuel blend containing 85% ethanol, is now used in parts of France, where Guizouarn said consumers increasingly associate it with environmental benefits.
“People who use this fuel do so because they believe it has a significant environmental impact,” she said. “They are very proud of it.”
Tereos is France’s largest ethanol producer, the second-largest in Europe and one of the biggest producers in Brazil.
But winning over consumers is only one part of the company’s strategy. Tereos is also seeking to lower the carbon footprint of the ethanol it produces, potentially increasing its value as regulators and customers put a greater premium on lower-emission fuels.
In Europe, that push is being accelerated by the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive, known as RED III, which sets rules and targets for renewable energy use. The revised framework creates incentives for biofuels with lower carbon footprints, an opportunity Tereos is monitoring.
Decarbonization Push
Tereos has been working since at least 2022 on decarbonization targets covering both agricultural and industrial operations globally.
The company set a target in 2022 to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from its agro operations by 32% by 2032. It had achieved a 24% reduction by the 2025/26 season. For industrial operations, the target is a 50% reduction — Tereos has already reached 17%.
Tereos’ farming model differs significantly between Brazil and Europe. In Brazil, the company farms 170,000 hectares (420,000 acres) of land it controls and sources sugarcane from partners covering another 122,000 hectares (301,000 acres). In Europe, it buys crops from growers rather than farming the land itself.
Globally, the cooperative has about 10,000 farmer members, most of them French sugar-beet growers.
In Europe, Tereos has introduced a voluntary regenerative-agriculture program that has attracted about 10% of its farmer members. The five-year program provides technical and financial support.
“We also pay a premium in Europe to farmers who commit to improving their management practices to reduce emissions and who manage to improve their indicators,” Guizouarn said.
Tereos does not yet pay Brazilian growers a premium for cutting emissions, but it has been expanding regenerative practices in the country.
About two-thirds of the roughly 300,000 hectares (741,000 acres) managed by Tereos in Brazil use some form of regenerative practice, according to Felipe Mendes, the company’s sustainability director in the country. Vinasse, a sugarcane-processing byproduct used as fertilizer, is applied to 75% of the area, with a target of 85% by 2030.
Tereos has also been selecting improved sugarcane varieties and expanding the use of biological farm inputs, which now cover about half of its Brazilian acreage.
Those measures have helped make the company’s operations more resilient to extreme weather, Mendes said.
“It was a learning curve that paid off,” he said. “If we go back to 2021/22, we lost 25% of our production that season. Last year, even with a very severe drought, the loss was 10%.”
Tereos is also transferring sustainability practices developed in Brazil to other markets. In Indonesia, where the company has begun buying corn to process into starches and sweeteners, it adapted a monitoring system developed by Brazilian agricultural technology startup Agrotools to assess the crop’s sustainability.
Adding Value to Ethanol
Tereos is also looking beyond road transportation as it seeks new sources of demand for ethanol.
Europe has set a target for sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, to account for 6% of aviation fuel by 2030. Tereos is positioning itself in the alcohol-to-jet market, a process that can convert ethanol into SAF.
In June, the company formed a joint venture with Airbus, Safran and Technip aimed at producing 160,000 metric tons of SAF by 2030.
“We know there will be increasing electrification of road transport in Europe, but we will still have biofuels available,” Guizouarn said. “So how do we prepare the next generation of value for that ethanol? We believe SAF is a good way to do that, and we are studying that possibility in other regions as well.”
This story was translated from the original Portuguese with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by The AgriBiz editorial staff.
