Dusseldorf The topic of greenhouse gas quotas creates covetousness. Since the beginning of the year, every owner of an electric car has been able to receive an annual bonus. Anyone who drives electrically saves emissions and can sell this saving – the so-called greenhouse gas quota or GHG quota – for around 300 euros to mineral oil companies, which in return have to pay for the CO2 emissions of their fuels.
However, the concept does not only inspire e-car drivers. A large number of start-ups also benefit from this. They buy their greenhouse gas quotas from motorists and sell them on to mineral oil companies in bundles. They keep a portion of the proceeds as commission.
It could all be very simple: the oil industry pays, consumers and start-ups benefit. If it wasn’t for the German bureaucracy. The Federal Environment Agency checks the applications of all e-car drivers: Are the vehicle registration documents real and is someone trying to get the premium twice? The process takes weeks. As a rule, the car owners receive their payment only after this.
The start-up Greenair takes advantage of this problem. Unlike many competitors, it promises to pay out the GHG premium within 24 hours after a car owner registers. The Federal Environment Agency will check the data later. A procedure with which Greenair now wants to conquer the market.
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The chances for Greenair are apparently good: The start-up, which operates three GHG portals wirkaufendeinzertifikat.de, klima-quote.de and 2Ocean.de, claims to already have a market share of 20 percent. Several large investors are now investing a single-digit million sum in the young company, as the Handelsblatt learned.
Fresh capital for thousands of GHG premiums per month
The financing round gives Greenair and its approximately 30 employees several advantages in the competitive GHG quota market. On the one hand, it gives the start-up the necessary capital for its concept. Founder Marcel Preuss explains: “We pay in advance for owners of electric vehicles.”
>> Read here: So you can earn money with your electric car on the side
According to Preuss, until now Preuss and his co-founders Vincent Werner, Sebastian Thelen and Philipp Heymann had enough money of their own to pay out the GHG premiums to several thousand newly registered car owners every month. “But now we have grown so much that our own liquidity is no longer sufficient, which is why investors are coming to us,” says Preuss.
The founder of the start-up Greenair says: “Now we have grown so much that our own liquidity is no longer sufficient, which is why investors are joining us.”
In addition to capital, the former management consultant and founder of two online shops also expects valuable knowledge and contacts from the lenders. The investor Jan Kemper, chief financial officer at the smartphone bank N26, is particularly prominent. Preuss says: “I threw up my hands with joy after I had the first conversation with him.”
Marc Kloepfel, Managing Director of the Kloepfel Group purchasing consultancy, is investing alongside Kemper. He is now a member of the Advisory Board at Greenair and will advise the start-up on professional trading with GHG quotas. “So far, this area has been completely understaffed in our company,” says Preuss.
The third investor is Christoph Chomik, former managing director of the online vehicle seller Autohaus24. He should help Greenair to work together with car companies in the future. According to the plan, car buyers could then, for example, offset their GHG premium directly against the leasing rate for their car.
“Provider jungle full of stumbling blocks”
For their part, the lenders are convinced that Greenair has potential. Jan Kemper from N26 told Handelsblatt on request that Greenair is a “very exciting company with experienced founders”. In addition, the start-up covers an important topic and there is a large market.
Marc Kloepfel from the purchasing consultancy of the same name said: “We will be actively involved operationally and improve the purchasing processes at Greenair.” bring in the most money.
Competing GHG start-ups, on the other hand, sharply criticize the fact that Greenair pays out the premiums first and only then gets the money back from the big corporations. The company GT Emission Solutions, which operates the GHG platforms greentrax.de and fairnergy.org, states: “If all providers paid in advance, it would be easy to register with several services and take the quota several times.”
Marc Schubert, Managing Director of Ecoturn GmbH, which is behind the GHG platform elektro Vorteil.de, also warns against car owners who submit forged documents or who want to tap the GHG premium several times. “The system is clearly susceptible to fraud on all sides at this point,” he says. “An entrepreneur will certainly not bear losses from this himself, but of course will have to recoup them elsewhere.”
From Schubert’s point of view, the many providers on the GHG quota market are a problem. “One superlative follows the next in advertising slogans,” he says. “Anyone who hasn’t studied half a dozen well-researched specialist articles, as a customer, is walking blindly into a jungle of suppliers full of stumbling blocks.”
Ecoturn Managing Director Schubert: Four weeks test time “absolutely utopian”
Greenair defends its own business model. It has never happened before that, after a review by the Federal Environment Agency, it turned out that an applicant was not entitled to receive the GHG quota. In addition, Greenair has already generated sales in the mid-single-digit million range in the first four months since its founding in January 2022 and was profitable just two months after its founding.
Investor Kemper says with regard to the payments made by other companies: “The question is of course whether this is due to the potential risk or the financial strength of the competition.” If there are more discrepancies, this is very promptly transparent and can be addressed directly .
However, the GHG industry members agree on one point: the examination by the Federal Environment Agency takes far too long. Greenair’s Preuss criticized the fact that it often took twelve to 18 weeks for a registration to be checked. A maximum of one month was planned.
Ecoturn Managing Director Schubert says that the Federal Environment Agency should now also be aware that “four weeks is absolutely utopian”. So far, the authorities have done little to make the processes safer, faster and more transparent for everyone involved.
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