Eligibility Assessment for Biofuel Certification

Sector: Renewable Energy & Land Analytics
Service: Compliance Mapping & Sustainability Evaluation
Region of Deployment: Sub-Saharan Africa
Client Type: Multinational Biofuel Procurement & Processing Entity

Project Scope

The client engaged us to conduct comprehensive eligibility assessments to support certification for biofuel production under ISCC Principle 1. This involved the end-to-end evaluation of environmental, legal, and sustainability risks across millions of hectares of agricultural and natural land across four African countries.

The multi-year deployment is structured as follows: 2024 / 2025 / 2026 / 2027

Target outputs included:

• Fully delineated field boundaries

• Environmental degradation assessment

• Eligibility metrics based on ISCC Principle 1

• Periodic monitoring & audit support

End-to-End Workflow

1. Field Boundary Delineation

• Imagery Source: Sentinel-2 L2A satellite data, upscaled using proprietary Deep Resolution neural networks from 10m to 1m per pixel across all 12 spectral bands.

• Delivery: On-demand through dashboard, API, or WMTS services, processed in under 10 minutes per AOI.

• Automation: Field boundaries are delineated entirely through an automated machine learning pipeline.

• Model Training: Over 3 million manually digitized boundaries were used exclusively for training and validating the delineation models—these boundaries are not used in production mapping.

• Accuracy: IoU > 0.94, sub-meter georeferencing, validated across 52 countries.

• Key Feature: No minimum field size; smallest field delineated was 50 m².

• Temporal Precision: Boundaries created are season-specific and fully align with the crop calendar.

2. Land Degradation Layers

• Soil Erosion (RUSLE + LSEBI):

  • Annual soil loss modeled using slope, rainfall, soil texture, and NDVI proxies.

  • Long Term Soil Exposure Benchmark Index developed by replacing NDVI with BSI (Bare Soil Index) and slope inversion to interpret exposure over time.
    
    

• Soil Salinity (NDSI):

  • Derived using Bands 11 & 12, annual salinity trends calculated.

  • Ineligible fields flagged where electrical conductivity exceeds 4 dS/m.

  • Field validation via soil sensors and electrical conductivity probes.

• Slope & Terrain (DEM):

  • Elevation, flatness, and slope extracted per field.

  • Slope >12% automatically marked as unsuitable for agriculture.

• SOC (Soil Organic Carbon):

  • Generated via NDVI, SAVI, BSI, and calibrated using ground truth sampling.

  • Fields under threshold (1.7% SOC) considered at risk of degradation.
    
    

• Carbon Stock Mapping:

  • Combines above-ground biomass, SOC, and vegetation change.

  • Tracks afforestation, deforestation, or degradation over time.
    
    

3. ISCC Principle 1 Eligibility Checks

• Avoidance of High Conservation Value (HCV) Areas:

  • Overlap analysis using WDPA, KBA, and GFW datasets.

  • Detection of conflict with areas of biodiversity, ecosystem services, or cultural significance.

• Deforestation Detection (2008-2024):

  • Time series classification detecting conversion from forest to cropland.

  • Automated model trained on satellite data; 30% of outputs manually validated.

  • Overlap threshold: >30% tree canopy cover or >3ha triggers ineligibility.
    
    

• Field Sustainability (DFSI):

  • 16 years of multispectral data used to calculate the DigiFarm Sustainability Index.

  • Positive values = sustainable production; negative = degradation risk.
    
    

• Soil Exposure Trends (LSEBI):

  • Annual regression analysis of BSI values, with inverted slope interpretation.

  • Indicates soil recovery or degradation.
    
    

• Land Use & Crop Classification:

  • Unsupervised clustering of NDVI time series into 12 land types.

  • Crop classification accuracy: F1 = 0.92–0.96.

  • Conducted on 3- to 8-year history (2016–2024).

  • Use cases: abandonment detection, crop rotation verification, food security.
    
    

Delivery & Reporting

• Delivery Platforms: API, platform integration, and pre-rendered visualization layers;

• File Formats: GeoJSON, PDF, CSV, metadata per boundary with all metrics;

• Integration: Seamless AWS-based processing and reporting;

• Monitoring: Seasonal refreshes, alerts for deforestation, degradation, or newly noncompliant areas;

• Audit Support: ISCC-aligned documentation, analysis reports, and eligibility maps submitted in formats ready for audit consumption.

• Validation: In-country partners perform on-site sampling and calibration (e.g., EC meters, SOC samples, field observations);

Outcome

• Eligibility Confidence: Consistently >95% acceptance rate for submitted fields under ISCC audit.

• Scalable Compliance: Framework replicable across new regions and growing annual coverage.

• High Transparency: Decision-ready visuals and data layers for certification authorities and sustainability officers.

• Sustainability Stewardship: Early warnings for degradation risks and active flagging of at-risk production zones.