Social acceptance of biofuel for transportation in Peninsular Malaysia

Abstract

Social acceptance issues can emerge as a powerful barrier in biofuel development. Beside the delay in project implementation, project cancellation is the worst consequence resulted from overlooking the social acceptance issues. This study is conducted to investigate social acceptance of biofuel in Malaysia with an aim to propose methods to eliminate this social barrier. The social acceptance is examined in respect to socio-political acceptance, community acceptance, and market acceptance. For the purpose of identifying socio-political acceptance, a literature review had been conducted and supported with a discussion of sociopolitical acceptance of biofuel in Malaysia based on the identified six socio-political acceptance criteria, namely strong institution capacity, clear and consistent regulatory framework, favourable financial procurement system, supportive spatial program, promoting stakeholder involvement, and compliant to sustainable certification. In examining the community acceptance, smallholder planters' intention to supply oil palm residue was examined using an extended version of Theory of Planned Behaviour. 327 set of data were collected with questionnaire and subjected to data analysis using structural equation modelling. Findings revealed that subjective norm and perceived production benefits are the two most significant variables in predicting smallholder planter's intention to supply oil palm residue. In terms of determination of the market acceptance, 803 set of data were analysed using choice-based conjoint analysis to identify the preference of fuel attributes in consumer fuel choice. Five fuel attributes were examined, namely fuel product, fuel price, fuel mileage, fuel availability and vehicle acceleration. Based on the findings, suggestion to enhance social acceptance of biofuel was provided. This study will enrich existing literature by providing insight into social acceptance of biofuel from a developing country context. Policy makers and biofuel producers can benefit in formulating effective strategies to foster social acceptance of biofuel.