Antony Blakey

It's not easy being green. And it's not always easy to take a stand on something you believe in, particularly if you've got elections to consider, and especially if it's a controversial subject like biofuel.

Thanks to the concerted efforts of green groups such as Friends of the Earth, biofuel has become a byword for deforestation, carbon emissions, displaced orangutans and an impending world food crisis. Subsequently, world leaders have crumbled under pressure and cut back support for the burgeoning global biofuels industry. Following the example of Europe, the UK government has reduced its own targets made under the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation, inevitably stunting the use of biofuel and the growth of the industry.

Of course, there is some truth to be found in the accusations levelled at the biofuels industry by green groups. Nobody can deny the carbon costs and habitat destruction caused by deforestation in Indonesia for palm oil biodiesel feedstock. Similarly, the Brazilian sugar cane industry, which produces bioethanol, undoubtedly gobbles up land that would otherwise be used for food crops or natural forests. And there is no doubt that by the time you've processed the feedstock and shipped the biofuel halfway round the world to a petrol station in Reading the carbon savings are starting to become dubious.

But let's not get hysterical. In these testing times it is important to keep a clear head and fully appreciate what we're up against. The transport sector now accounts for some 22 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the UK. What we emit as individuals accounts for 40 per cent of all emissions, with our own transport emissions accounting for the largest proportion of that figure.

Defra, the government body tasked with running environmental services in the UK, has already accepted that the carbon dioxide emission reductions possible from rolling out biodiesel alone are "in the order of 55 per cent". An indep endent report produced for Defra by Sheffield Hallam University hinted that these reductions could potentially be as high as 86 per cent.

So why can't we find a way to make biofuel both sustainable and commercially viable? We can. And we are. One answer is to source and process the feedstock within closer proximity to the end user, cutting both transport costs and carbon emissions simultaneously. The most prolific car users in the world are in the first world, and European innovators have seen the opportunity to process and grow biodiesel crops locally from oil-seed rape, and animal tallow. The north-east of England has been particularly adept at this, and the industry has gone some way to regenerating the industrial areas. Similarly, British Sugar has seen the potential for bioethanol production from East Anglian sugar beet and has opened the UK's first bioethanol plant at Wissington in Norfolk.

Last time I checked, there were no wild orangutans in Middlesborough or King's Lynn, so it seems bizarre that government is so blinkered by controversy overseas, rather than a successful alternative at home.

Granted, these oilseed rape crops don't surmount the issue of displaced food crops. Scientists at my company, Ultra Green, are working on a biodiesel forest crop that can grow in the temperate climates of northern Europe and North America that can be cultivated away from food production land and utilise unused and waste land instead. It will be a while before we can start planting fuel forests in the Scottish crofts, but we'd really like to see other industries tackling the problem of sustainable biofuel head on, so we can push the boundaries of science and create a vibrant, buoyant biofuels industry.

Despite its ferocious advocation of wind power, the UK government openly accepts that there is presently no renewables silver bullet that will keep our lights on. The answer, they say, is a combined effort of all renewable technologies from wind to solar to biomass and waste power, combined with nuclear power and coal-fired power stations fitted with state-of-the-art carbon capture technology.

According to Ed Miliband himself, the government believes "nuclear and clean fossil fuels are the trinity of low-carbon fuels of the future, all of them have their role to play. We need all of them because the challenge of the low-carbon future is so significant."

This comprehensive approach also holds the key to sustainable transport. We need the power of hydrogen technology, fuel cell technology, electric cars and biofuels – yes, biofuels, locally sourced and grown. All it takes is some planning, some intelligence, and some support from the top – is this really beyond us?

The failure at Copenhagen demonstrates that the time for talking is over. We in the West have already accepted responsibility for our part in the destruction of our planet. It's time we stopped wringing our hands, and used all our resources, all our scientific know-how and all our innovation to find a way round this problem. It's been done before and it's our responsibility to do it again.

More than that, when the ethical solutions are out there ready to be discovered, it's our duty to take the initiative and make a difference.

Antony Blakey is the executive chairman of clean technology firm Ultra Green Group