Sustainable development in the UK Car industry using bio-based materials as an example: an analysis of EU legislation.

The European automotive sector faces a number of sustainability challenges including the consumption of significant amounts of raw materials. The use of bio-based materials, i.e. those made from living organisms, as opposed to metals or plastics from non-renewable fossil fuels, has been hailed as one mode of addressing this challenge due to their lightweight structure and renewable supply. The increased adoption of biomaterials is however shaped and constrained by existing legislative frameworks. Of particular note are the EU’s emissions regulation, (EC, 2009) governing car emissions, the End of life vehicle directive (EC, 2000) covering car disposal and the Circular Economy (CE) package (EC, 2014) which seeks to encourage reuse and recycling rather than disposal. This thesis analyses EU policies and their application and effect at the UK level to establish if and how they facilitate or block the uptake of biomaterials within the European automotive sector. The thesis draws upon expert interviews and documentary analysis to make an empirical and methodological contribution to broader sustainability transitions theory by examining the impact of extant legislation upon sustainable innovation. The thesis suggests that the multi-level perspective, which has been used to explain the adoption of new sustainable technologies, should be amended to take the legislative regime more explicitly into account. Specifically the analysis shows that whilst emissions legislation has been largely neutral in its effects, the ELV and CE packages present potential barriers to the increased adoption of biomaterials in this sector. There are also inconsistencies between the legislation which hamper their effective implementation. The analysis implies that the promotion of sustainable material innovation in the car industry requires particular attention at the supranational legislative level to prevent unsustainable path dependency and permit legislators to strategically manage the regime of automotive legislation.