Ratings Process

To begin the BDO Zone Rating process, the Issuer (e.g., Local economic development group) must submit an inquiry to IBRA that they are interested in a BDO Zone rating for their region.

Once an inquiry has been submitted, there is a discovery meeting between the Issuer and IBRA. During the meeting, we discuss the BDO Zone program, discuss the feedstock quantities available in the region, discuss the infrastructure in the region and the identified site(s). The Issuer is encouraged to try BDOSAT to determine if a BDO Zone Rating is a good fit.

BDOSAT is a powerful online tool that empowers communities, corporations, and governments to assess regional readiness for new biomass-based manufacturing plants. This gives the Issuer a preliminary opinion on a BDO Zone Rating outcome, to determine whether it is a good fit. This is a high-level opinion, based on questions about biomass availability and infrastructure.

​If your rating opinion is ‘BB’ or better, then your region may be a prime candidate for new bioenergy project development, particularly with the support of a BDO Zone Rating.

If the BDOSAT tool resulted in a rating opinion of ‘BB’ or better, then there is a follow-up meeting to discuss next steps, and funding opportunities to support a BDO Zone Rating.

If the Issuer does not have funding, IBRA assists them in plugging into a grant, and connects the Issuer to a grant writing team. If successful, the BDO Zone Rating process can commence.

If the Issuer does have funding available, IBRA will draft and share a proposal with the Issuer, and once the payment is received the BDO Zone Rating process can commence.

Once funding has been acquired, the Issuer and IBRA sign a contract and begin the BDO Zone Rating process.

To begin the rating process, the Licensee must do the following:

1. Gather data to assess potential feedstock supply risk in the Supply Zone
2. Gather data to assess key competing market risks for feedstock in the Competition Zone
3. Gather data to assess infrastructure risk to ongoing operations in the BDO Zone

After the Licensee has collected all of the data about the Zones, it is then applied to IBRA’s internal models to determine feedstock demand, availability, and pricing.

To assess the biomass supply chain risk for the Biofuel Development Opportunity (BDO) Zone, 75 Risk Indicators from the Canadian and US Standards for Biomass Supply Chain Risk (BSCR) are applied. These BDO Zone Risk Indicators are the subset of BSCR Risk Indicators applicable to evaluating feedstock risk within a BDO Zone. The Licensee assigns a score based on the likelihood and impact of a risk on the successful development and deployment of a BDO Zone Project.

The Licensee may choose to notch these scores if a bio-based project could implement economically reasonable measures to mitigate the risk. The aggregated score determines the final score for the indicator.

The aggregated scores of all the indicators determine the final score for the BDO Zone, which then informs the rating grade assigned to the BDO Zone. Rating grades are as follows:

After the Rating Grade has been assigned, the rating is sent for review by the IBRA committee. If the committee votes to approve, the rating is then published to the public.