Olivier Dubois – sGU Associate

sGU Associate

As of December 2023, Olivier Dubois is an Associate to studio Gear Up B.V. for joint advisory services in the field of sustainable biomass production, collection and mobilisation.

He has decades-long worked on topics such as: land use intensification, forest management, institutional strengthening, decentralisation, rural development and rural energy in more than 40 countries in Africa, Asia-South Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and CIS countries.

He gained this experience through both long-term assignments with the Belgian Cooperation Agency, the German Consulting Company DFS (Deutsche Forest Service) the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and FAO, and through several short term missions, including for the World Bank and the European Commission.

He holds a Master’s in Agronomy, Certificates in Tropical Agriculture, Rural Economics and Sociology from the Faculty of Agronomy of Gembloux, Belgium, and a master’s in environmental management from the European Community Environment Programme. Olivier fluently speaks English, French and Portuguese, and has good command of Spanish and Italian.

Publications

Analysis of SAF allowances (FEETS) – 2024-price update

February 2025, the European Commission adopted a new support mechanism on ‘SAF allowances’: used to bridge the price gap for the use of alternative fuels to accelerate the roll out of SAF.
We reviewed this mechanism in order to assess its expected impact on supporting the development of SAF market. We conclude that the policy design would require additional policy instruments to support the broader development of the SAF market.

Current POME-based biofuels in EU fall within current production potential

According to studio Gear Up’s numerical analysis, the current volume of POME-biofuels deployed in the EU are in the range of current production volumes of POME residues. We advise to keep a close look on the future volumes of POME-based biofuels, given the upper limits of production. Strengthening the information position of renewable fuels supply chains with more frequent auditing and historical data of POME-oil production are needed.

SAF allowances may not be the best instrument to ramp up SAF production

Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) are renewable fuels that replace fossil based kerosine in aircrafts and are seen as an important option to mitigate climate emissions in the aviation sector. Generally, these alternative fuels are more expensive than their fossil counterpart, kerosene. In order to support the uptake of SAF, the European Commission has introduced several policy instruments.