Green Revolution: From Garage to Global with Firefly Green Fuels

“We’re in the fight against climate change. That’s what has driven the business so far. I am proud of what I do; this has never felt like a proper job” – James Hygate

James Hygate, the founder and CEO of Firefly Green Fuels, was brought up in Gloucestershire, in the south-west of England, by parents who were passionate about the environment. In 1997, he graduated with a BSc in Zoology from Reading University before obtaining, in 1998, an MSc in Environmental Assessment and Management from Oxford Brookes University. He then set up “The Environmental Solutions Company” and, in 1999, “Waste Exchange UK” before launching “Green Fuels Ltd.” in his parents’ garage in 2003. He started by converting waste vegetable oil into biodiesel, and, as he says, initially it was a hobby “to allow me not to go to the petrol station.”  However, within 2 years, the venture had achieved an annual turnover of over £1.5 million, and in 2013, he founded Green Fuels Research, which developed and patented the technology for both biofuels and aviation biofuels.   Since then, the venture has grown so that it operates bio-refineries on every continent except Antarctica, produces over 1 million litres of sustainable biofuel every day, and has offset around 5 million tonnes of carbon.

Over the years James and his team have experimented with  different waste materials to make biofuel and have not only enabled the Royal Train to be powered by biodiesel but converted King Charles III’s favourite Aston Martin to run on bioethanol, using waste wine and cheese. However, the big challenge, as James recognises, is the aviation industry. With the present technology, long haul flights cannot be powered by hydrogen or electricity so an alternative to fossil aero fuel is needed, one that has a zero-carbon footprint. In 2021 they received a £1.9 million Government grant from the Green Fuels-Green Skies fund to explore the possibility of converting into aero fuel the 57 million tons of sewage waste produced in the U.K. each year. As a result of the research they have found that by using their hydrothermal liquefaction process  they can make some 380 million litres of fuel using the waste sewerage sludge that is presently available and that the fuel is just like fossil-based kerosene but has a 90% lower carbon footprint than standard jet fuel. As James says However to fly a passenger jet from London to New York and back would require the annual sewage of some 20,000 people.

Even so the invention has considerable potential and in April 2023 Wizz Air, Europe’s fastest growing and most environmentally sustainable airline, announced a £5million investment in Firefly. In return this has enabled them   to procure 525,000 tonnes of sustainable aviation fuel from Firefly over 15 years from 2028, saving the airline 100,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year, equivalent to 12,000 return Wizz Air flights between London and Budapest. According to James, this investment in Firefly will “facilitate a step change towards the future of air travel” and they will be able to put sewage “to a truly beneficial use, reducing the use of fossil fuels in the hardest to decarbonise areas”.

With offices in Gloucestershire, London, Mumbai, Muscat, and Rio Janeiro, the company currently employs 20 people at its facility near Bristol and some 50 in total. They are a great team of people who are concerned, says James “about pollution and the climate crisis. It is a global issue and we now want to build a global business to address it”. Hence his plan is for Firefly to employ a thousand or more people in the next five years. So, in just 20 years the company has developed from a hobby business building plastic tanks and pipes in the   garage of his parents’ home in order to help charities, farmers and small businesses produce biofuels   to building complex company processes and undertaking an incredible amount of challenging research. This has been achieved as a result of the determination of James and his team to have a disproportionate impact on greenhouse gas reduction. As a consequence, the company addresses SDGs 13 (Climate Action), 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). At the same time it holds a Royal Warrant for supplying biofuel to the Royal Family and James is recognised as a thought leader in the biofuels industry. While it is a for profit business it does not harm the planet or its people in the process and is an example of an enterprise in which profit, planet and people are in Harmony.

References

Godding, N., (2023), Bristol’s Firefly creates aviation fuel from human sewage. The Business Magazine. 20^th October.

Weeks, C., (2023), Green Fuels: fighting climate change with sewage sludge. Fuel Oil News. 17^th March

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