Business View Oceania | March 2020

65 66 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA MARCH 2020 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA MARCH 2020 B IOENERGY ASSOC I AT ION “There are also opportunities for businesses to hold hands, where they can get some economy of scale. For instance, say there are three businesses in an area that are all producing an organic waste. If they can come together and make a processing plant for that waste to make bioenergy, then it helps everyone. This is the sort of thing that CEOs should be considering – leading from the top and putting the pressure on the staff down below to find the answer to that question of why they are sending waste to the landfill. And make it work. Conceptually, the CEO and senior managers have the helicopter view of the business as a whole, whereas the various staff under them will be looking at their own little patch. They will be the technologists focusing on the boilers and the heat and the fuels and all the processes of the plant.” energy onsite. They are controlling the feedstock as well as the end products that they can use themselves.” BVO: What should businesses be focussed on when considering bioenergy? Cox: “I’m not selling the organisation, I’m really trying to say to people, “You have opportunities for your business which you should be thinking about – looking at the type of energy you’re using in your processes and whether there are alternatives like renewables. And looking at what you’re currently sending to landfill that could be used as an energy source. The waste-to-energy solution in the New Zealand and Australian market gets a lot more support because both governments are keen to reduce the waste going to landfill. environmental standards for waterways and land erosion protection. And now there is a lot of government support for forestry because of carbon capture, and dairy is reaching a plateau, so they are planting trees on dairy farms. “The circular economy waste-to-energy utilising the residues from your business is the topic I see as the priority one. While the players in the process heat area (such as a food manufacturer using coal or gas for fuel) have an impetus on moving from fossil fuels and may be considering biomass, the issue for them is really whether they’re in a location where the cost of the biomass makes it an economic proposition for them to do. That is mostly out of their control. Whereas in the circular economy areas, you might have a food processor with vegetable residues which they can use for their own BVO: What does the landscape look like for the industry over the next three to five years and how will your Association adapt? Cox: “I think the speed of transition has picked up in the last year. In New Zealand, we now have a government that has targets in terms of the Paris Agreement and climate change. They’ve just passed a zero carbon act in that regard so those terms are legally required to be reached by 2050. We work closely with another organisation – Bioenergy Australia – they tend to be more an advocacy group to central government there. Whereas we’re more with individuals, whether they’re a member or non- member, and we focus on best practice, and distribution of information to practitioners, etc. in New Zealand and Australia. That collaboration works well. “I send out a monthly newsletter to influence government and business decision makers, and the practitioners. Because it’s an emerging market, we’ve got to move them from thinking how they thought last year to how they should be thinking next year. It’s all about forward thinking. Many of the big engineering companies do what they did for the last 10 years because it’s low risk and they know what they’re doing. If you ask them to change, they say it’s high risk and they don’t know anything about it. Whereas a lot of the small companies, with three or four engineers who probably own the business themselves, are fleet of foot and doing things wonderfully. “To sum it up, the Bioenergy Association is a facilitator and assistant to business and government to bring about the economic and wellbeing benefits that arise from utilisation of biobased materials – wood or waste. A year ago we stood on the bottom step of the ladder. I would now say we’re on step three of the ladder. Waste-to-energy is where there is a hunger for information and that’s where I see more potential in terms of activities that end barriers to progress.”