Waste taking centre stage as a feedstock

For the planet to reach net carbon neutrality by 2050 we need solutions, which are both actionable and scalable today. Despite impressive and steady gains, we unfortunately cannot solely rely on electrification to reduce all GHG emissions from transport, especially for maritime, aviation and larger road vehicles such as HGVs.
During 2022 we saw a big focus on waste-based fuels, such as HVOs. While such fuels represent an important effort in decarbonising transportation – and we expect this to continue through 2023 and beyond – these oils can be challenging to collect at scale and fall short of replacing a significant amount of fossil fuels.
According to the International Energy Agency, this feedstock crunch will continue into this year. The current limited supply of HVO has driven prices up to 2.5 times higher than pre-2021 levels. This has contributed to vegetable oils showing the highest price increases amongst all food products globally, even before the Ukraine-Russia crisis.
The limited supplies of vegetable and waste oils coupled with tight diesel supply from a ban on Russian products and OPEC’s policy of restricting oil output through the end of...