Dirk Kronemeijer (CEO GoodFuels): “Knights of the Future: Energy Edition gives us the opportunity to really work together in the fight against climate change”
100 of the brightest Dutch minds around. Ten tables. Discussing the biggest challenge that mankind has ever faced: How can we reduce CO2 emissions by 49% by 2030, before it’s too late? That’s Knights of the Future: The Energy Edition on January 23rd in the Hague in a nutshell. One of the Knights involved is Dirk Kronemeijer, CEO of GoodFuels. We talked to him about the importance of working together and his expectations of the upcoming Knights of the Future-event, hosted by StartupDelta and New Energy Coalition.
When Dirk Kronemeijer still worked as Vice President Business Innovation (the youngest vice-president ever) at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines the airline had drawn up a ‘roadmap to sustainable aviation’ because the then CEO desperately wanted to get rid of the image of big time air-polluter. It was the start of Kronemeijers cautious search for sustainable fuel, a search that resulted in the first bio-kerosene ever made from used deep-frying fat, but also in the start of his life as an entrepreneur. “At KLM the people of management development advised me to climb the corporate career ladder even further, say to lead a hangar with 2000 FTE. But deep down I realized that the corporate jacket started to feel less and less comfortable for me. I wanted to do business myself, to speed up things, to take risks. More risk than I could ever have taken within a more secure corporate environment.”
He found his new career stepping stone in 2009 in SkyNRG, which quickly became the global market leader in sustainable jet fuel, partly thanks to KLM, which became SkyNRG’s first major customer. After that, he applied the same trick to the shipping and heavy road transport by developing, delivering and promoting truly sustainable biofuels for shipping, heavy road transport, rail transport and industrial machinery with his next company GoodFuels. GoodFuels also quickly became a market leader, in a similar conservative sector as aviation. “Like aviation, shipping is international. That means keeping the level playing field in terms of cost is absolutely crucial whilst international legislation that applies for everyone may take forever. That means you have to be creative and identify niches where you can establish a bridgehead of first volumes — and then grow from there. That creativity and perseverance is still the essence of our competence and of our success. We are masters of market making, tipping point creators.”
Cooperation is key
Despite the slightly higher price, the GoodFuels offer is very popular with shipowners and parties such as Boskalis, the navy, ferries, coastguards and ports, but also with cargo owners who want to manage their logistics in a more climate-friendly way. Through the spin-off GoodShipping.org companies can make their maritime transport greener at a fixed price per container and per kilometer. Big names such as Ikea and Heineken are also joining in by buying advanced biofuel as if it were green electricity.
According to Kroneijmer, these collaborations are the key to his rapid success. Not only because of the volume that is created in this way, but also because big names are creating new customers. “They open doors for startups and scale-ups that would otherwise remain closed”, he explains. “When we tell new customers that IKEA and Heineken are on board, other large corporates are far more likely to follow. Lighthouse A-Brand clients are essential to help create a market tipping point. Hence getting the first one is always the most difficult and we cherish these clients also with everything we have. If they want us to jump, we jump.”
Work together against climate change
Through all these experiences, finding surprising collaborations has really become part of Kronemeijers DNA. That’s why he was also so excited to be invited by StartupDelta to be one of the knights to participate in the Knights of the Future: the Energy Edition on the 23th of January, in which 100 brave men and women — Knights — will be tackling how to best shape the energy transition in ten challenges.
”I very much support the idea of bringing together a mix of most important stakeholders: business, government, academia and the community at large together to discuss the pressing challenge of the energy transition.” Especially because also startups and scale-ups are involved, notices Kronemeijer. “They have so far been given little room to think about this challenge and are not, for example, invited to participate and think along with the Climate Tables. I believe that is a real shame, because it’s precisely these companies that are accelerating the process. In thinking and in action.”
Besides the input from the startups, Kronemeijer also believes that industry focus is needed on national level to tackle this enormous challenge. “Too much focus is been given in the public debate on adding cost and downside — people underestimate the upside and huge economic opportunities on both micro and macro level.” He cites the example of Denmark, which is a country that is a long way ahead of us in the field of wind energy technology by continuing to innovate consistently as a country.
“You may say the Danes literally took “our” windmill edge away from us. By investing ten years in expensive wind farm technology — for which they literally had to pay the price themselves. But these temporarily high energy bills pay off now. They have gained knowledge that cannot be found anywhere else and now they can capitalize on it by rolling out windfarms everywhere using Danish technology. Let’s make sure this does not happen to us again and do the same thing here with which industry or segment we ultimately choose to make big.”
Social impact entrepreneurship
And finally, what does he think about the specific challenge that he and his ten table mates will be dealing with on the 23rd, namely: How can we meet the high-temperature heat demand of the industry without CO2 emissions? He laughs: “Our company is working on that day by day ! If you simply support companies like us to accelerate as fast as possible, I think we will get quite far in changing this planet in the shortest time span possible — that’s how far my strong belief in social impact entrepreneurship goes…”
