The vision of a climate-friendly world in which renewable resources are key to ensuring the welfare of today’s and future generations, that’s what CropEnergies stands for. With sustainable, renewable products made from biomass, we ensure that fossil carbons remain in the ground permanently. We live in a world where countless “everyday” – products are made from fossil raw materials such as crude oil, coal or natural gas. With the use of fossil raw materials, carbon that has been stored in the soil for millions of years is released into the atmosphere as CO2. Greenhouse gas emissions are increasing, climate change is progressing. CropEnergies aims to change that, by providing biobased alternatives for the use of fossil resources today – for today’s and future generations!
Founded in Mannheim in 2006, the member of the Südzucker Group is the leading European producer of sustainably produced, renewable ethanol. With a production capacity of 1.3 million cubic metres of ethanol per year, CropEnergies produces neutral as well as technical alcohol (ethanol) for a wide range of applications at locations in Germany, Belgium, Great Britain and France. Thanks to highly efficient production plants, ethanol for fuel applications reduces CO2 emissions by an average of more than 70 percent over the entire value chain compared to fossil fuel. In addition, biomass use produces more than 1 million tonnes of high-quality, protein food and animal feed every year, as well as biogenic carbon dioxide, which is used in beverage production, among other things.
Find out more: https://www.cropenergies.com/de/
Fossil fuels currently Supply around 80% of the world’s energy from coal and oil to natural gas and are a dominant cause of global warming crop energies is making sure that fossil carbons remain in the ground permanently and is the leading producer of renewable ethanol in Europe it is also a company that
Continues to create new products to Def fossilize customers prod products I sat down at the cop 28 talks here in Dubai to talk to higher bound bash head of investor relations at crop energies so we’re here in Dubai for cop 28 what are your first impressions well
It’s really impressive it’s so big it’s very interesting it’s interesting to meet people who are in global climate change and yeah it’s a great opportunity for me so this is your first ever C on I believe so why have you decided the time is now to come well I think now it’s a
Really great um possibility to show crop Energies new business model you know we’re currently implementing our new strategy Innovation from biomass and it’s a great opportunity to explain it to the people here very much looking forward to hearing all about crop energies let’s take this over to our studio and continue the conversation
There sure sounds great so hiker tell us a little bit about crop energies exactly what you do as I understand climate action really is in the DNA of your company so tell us more about it yes that’s correct thank you Laura crop energy stands for the vision of having a climate friendly
World with the help of renewable products and they should then ensure the welfare of future and today’s generations when we started with crop energies we started in the field of Mobility so our major product is renewable ethanol which is used to Def fossilize the transport sector um we were ipoed in
2006 and we had quite a big success story since then but now times are changing and we’re moving into other business areas uh we launched a new strategy that is called Innovation from biomass and I’m very happy to tell you a bit more about that well so yes let’s
Talk about biomass which in very simple terms is creating renewable energy from plants so tell us a little bit more about this space Within in crop energies as well yes that’s correct biomass that can be plants that can be waste and residues and what is nice about biomass
Is that it’s really helping us to replace a fossil resources when you look at it from a greenhouse gas perspective you know when the plant is growing it’s capturing the CO2 from the atmosphere and then when it’s burned it’s freeing up that CO2 again so we call that the
CO2 cycle so tell us about some of the products you’re rolling falling out at crop energies yeah of course well we started as I already said in the field of Mobility so our major product for the time being is renewable ethanol that is Blended to petrol and um what we
Currently work on is we try to have a bigger feed stock base yeah so we try to increasingly use waste and residues to produce such ethanol and we just did an small acquisition in that field but I think even more interesting is really our new activities in the field of
Biobased chemicals because when you look at the chemical industry they have an issue they need carbons but the fossil carbons they should stay in the ground and we at crop energies we offer um a renewable alternative for that we use our ethanol as a basis and then we
Create biobased chemicals so our first product that we’re just working on is the production of renewable atal acetate in Germany in East Germany we spent more than 100 million in that project and this um renewable esate you will find in a lot of day-to-day products for example
In cosmetics nail polisher yeah but also in adhesives or glue Etc so various applications where we offer a renewable alternative um this is not all that we do we also do a lot in the field of proteins so we supply the food and feed sector with our products and last but
Not least the very very interesting path is the use of CO2 but I’m not you I’m not talking about fossil CO2 I’m talking about biogenic CO2 because when we produce ethanol in the production process you have a fermentation process and we have like green biogenic CO2 that
Is coming up in that process and this was be is one important part that you need if you want to produce synthetic fuels we are not yet there yet but we are looking into opportunities to also enter into that business segment in the future so what do you think it’s going
To take to get there then have you got a strategy on way yes we have a strategy on the way but we have to say it requires a lot of Investments heavy Investments um so our investment program that we have just started is already nearly 300 million EUR and if we really
Want to go for example for synthetic fuels a lot more would required and also a stable and legal framework what about your customers how are you helping them how are you encouraging them to become more sustainable yes in fact what we do is we help our customers to reduce their
Carbon footprint yeah talking about fuels I think it’s it’s obvious that with every liter consumed where our ethanol is Blended you save or the customer saves greenhouse gas emissions for the biobased chemicals we are really in a first first mover position we offer A green chemical that a customer can
Then use to have a really have a full renewable product and this at least in Europe is so far not really available and we would really like to move on on that part will you’re looking to Harve emissions by 2030 and Achieve climate neutrality by 2045 very ambitious Target there what’s
The strategy in place to propel that forward exactly um well you know we are a very energy intense industry and we have already done a lot of efforts actually to achieve that for example in this year in our production plant in Belgium we installed a second biomass
Boiler that means we are nearly climate neutral already in Belgium which was a big effort and was also expensive we spent 50 million EUR on that investment um if we look at another production site in the UK for example we spend another 25 million on in increasing Energy
Efficiency and at the same time reducing emissions and for the whole group we will first try to increase efficiency because that’s what is key to do first and then second we will also think about potential fuel switch but what is always an issue and you know that especially in
Europe we really need a stable framework stable political framework yeah we have seen so many changes in recent years within the EU VI regulation we need to know what to do what is wanted what is supported and then we can make a decision on our investments and go ahead
A fascinating insight there into crop energies thank you so much for sharing with us and enjoy the rest of cop 28 thank you Laura