You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer on Bloomberg Radio. You are listening to Bloomberg Business Week Carol Masser along with Kaylee Lines. And uh, we are watching certainly a storm zeta, right? Is that how we say it? Seta zeta? Yeah? I don't know. It's at the end of the alphabet, which tells us just how many storms we have seen this year, and especially in the Gulf Coast.
I mean, this one is almost a category three and lo and behold it's barreling towards Louisiana, which has already gotten hit by multiple storms this year, Carol, and impacting that coast and that environment. It all speaks to climate change, something we've been watching globally. We want to talk a bit about that. Our next guest doing some interesting work. They are very involved in renewable diesel, renewable jet fuel, renewable and recycled plastics. Jeffy Bains is president of nest
to US. It's a division of the Finland based company Nesty. Their A d r s have been on quite a run this year, up more than fifty percent. He joins us on the phone in Houston, Texas, Jeremy, delighted to have you here with us. How are you, yes, thank you very well, staying at home, staying safe. Well, talk to us a little bit about that. We're gonna get into your business in just a moment. But what is your world like amid COVID and what has it been like? Well,
it's been, it's been. It's been a very tough year, UM, not not only for nest Day but for business in general. UM. And we as a company, we have done We have done better than maybe others. The renewable space has remained very strong, UM. And all of our employees have now been working from home for at least since the end of March. So we've really had to adjust this new situation rights so many of us have as we come out of this, and obviously we are far from out
of it. We still have a long way to go. But you make the case that the COVID nineteen recovery is really going to need climate change policy. Can you just talk me through that? Thank Well. If if we look at COVID nineteen, we look at California wildfires. You were mentioning Hurricane Zeta, So this Atlantic hurricane season, they've all been made so much worse by climate change, and it's it's really costing life, and it's causes massive economic damage.
And if we think about it, at the root cause of this climate change is really the burning of fossil fuels. So so now as we start thinking about coming out of this really massive economic downturn, we need to put sustainability at the heart of the recovery. And and if we talk about fossil fuels, one of the key areas where we see that importance is in transportation, and where it's especially critical is in those herds to abate vehicles, those those big wigs, those trucks on the roads, there's
planes in the skies, those vessels on the seas. These are these are industries. These are sectors where the emissions are continued to grow and which is so difficult for us to reduce. So we need to be smart in terms of policy. We need to put a price on carbon that that in that is technology, technology and feats of neutral and have have policies in place that really
encouraged the use of low carbon fuels. And I'm actually quite encouraged because it was about this time last year that Misty had the opportunity to testify in Congress, and we are now starting to see really much more talk about renewable fuels in DC and the world that it must play in the future for a sustainable recovery. Do you think that changes depending on who is in the White House, who is in Congress. Well, I think climate
change is not going away. We really need to We really need to find this and it's it's not It's not only from what happens in Congress. We also see it from the industries. We see the CEOs of companies UM who are making these business decisions. They see which direction the market is going. If if we think about the millennials, the gen Z, they are now starting to enter the marketplace. They are starting to make those decisions and for them, the environment, social justice, and climate change
are important issues. So if you if you're CEO of a company today, you really want to make these choices and regulated any DC is starting to see them. So I think regardless of who will be in the White House UM in the next couple of weeks, this becomes an important topic. But Jeremy, I think it does make a difference in that part of Biden's platform is clean energy investment and infrastructure. Couldn't that make a difference in
demand for a business like yours? It would do. I think it's clear that that the pace of change would be difference depending on what political choice you make. But I think it's the question about making a policy choice has already been made, yes, so then it's just a speed of implementation and how quickly as a other country, as a society, we can actually start tackling climate change, but also how quickly we can build a new, better,
more sustainable economy. With more sustainable it's more sustainable for the violence, but it's more sustainable for jobs, and it's
more sustainable for the economy. You know, Jeremy, you you're I'm going to say, you're preaching to the choir, like I am all in on this and I agree with you, but I do feel like, you know, it's funny my seventeen year old said, you know, I think that your generation or even you know, older generations don't really care because they're not going to be around and they're not going to be in the world that I'm growing up in. And you know, just talked about climate change in terms
of policies. We we talk about it a lot, and listen, there are a lot of companies doing great initiatives, uh and and so on. But I do think just look at the world, we're not moving fast enough. So I'm curious what hopes you have that we pick up the speed when it comes to these policies that take care
of our environment. Yeah. Yeah, I think you raised an interesting point about children, asking it my children, they are they are going to live for decades in this world, So it's what what I do also impact their future, And it's from and it's I think it's from that perspective that we that we even even if we're not going to be around for that long, they will be what kind of world do we want to leave for
future generation? Right? So, so, yes, you are correct that it is important who comes into the White House, but it's it's really the policy clarity at the end of the day that is going to drive to change, and the policy clarity is going to come from people who vote and people who it Jeremy, I'm wondering how sticky you think this is. People pay a lot of lip service to it now, but has covidentine really brought about a sustained, meaningful push toward better climate policy. I think so.
And I think so because people people are at home, people are spending wartime speaking about all the times that they were stuck in traffic. People are looking at what's happening of environment a random much more closely than so. Yes, I do think this is going to be sticky. Um, it is. And they want something you they want They want to have some hope coming out of this crisis, and I think it's sustainable. The covy is that hope
that we can bring. Jerry. One thing I want to get into for those who might not be excuse me familiar with what you guys do, I mean it is about renewable fuels. What specifically, tell me what the process or what what you do and how that reduced does the impact on climate? On the climate? Yes, unless say is there is the world's largest producer of renewable fuels,
renewable diesels specifically, and what is it? It is a fuel? Um, it is a diesel fuel that you can drop into any diesel engine today using all the infrastructure that's available today. But rather than putting new carbon into the atmosphere, it's actually using carbon form the atmosphere. And how has that done well. We we use as feedstocks um use cooking oils, animal fats, vegetable oils. And when you think about it, these um the carbon in those fuels actually came from
the atmosphere. It's the plants that were converting sunlight and C O two into oils in their sees. So we are recycling that carbon. And through the technology that we've developed, we can convert that into renewable diesel, but we can also use that to make sustainable aviation fuel. We can make that use that into into plastics and chemicals, so we can really create a circular economy of carbon um
and and that's and that's something quite unique. So there's no impact on the environment in terms of the process. There is. So so today we can reduce the emissions by up to eight compared to fossil fuels. Why is it not a hundred percents because we still need to transport it, and the transportation today is still done with vehicles in large part running on fossil fuels. There's also
some emissions that come from the process itself. But next Day's aim is to be production neutral by twenty thirty five, so that is surtly going to reduce it. And as more and more renewables are used in transportation, our fuel becomes more efficient as well in its distribution. So the aim is really to drive that too, as close to a hundred percent reduction as possible. Jerry, I'm curious what the appetite for renewable diesel is like. Can you just
give us a lens into that demand here in the US? Well, A lot of the demand for famethday in our in our competitors is on the West coast. California started the low carbon fuel standard Nellie Nelli a decade ago, and that that's what I meant early on in the conversation about politic choices. They put in place really clear program which which is which has been aiming to reduce the
carbon going into the atmosphere. And it's technology neutral, it's vendor neutral, it's seedstock neutral, so everybody can compete in that space. Its electrification, it's renewable gass, renewable diesel. So that's where we see renewable diesel being the most successful in US today. Well, Jeremy, you mentioned California and electrification. We know California is one of the states that is
making a big push towards e VS. I'm wondering, do you see renewable diesel kind of taking hold alongside electrification or is it eventually going to be a competitor. So can form is really at the forefront. And we saw recently that they're going to be banning the sale of light duty internal combustion engines five The thirty five for light duty and twenty forty five for heavy duty is
still many decades away. And that's just California. And then those those those trucks on the roads, those cars on the roads, they will be around for another decade. So we've seen for years and years and years there is going to be demand for liquid renewable fuels, and and we are we convinced, and we already see it that what California has done is also spreading to other states. Were already active in oding that has a clean fuel program.
Washington States merely passed from last year. We see the same thing happening in New York and in other states across the country. So we really believe that renewable liquid fuels have a very long future still ahead of them. Yeah, really fascinating in terms of what's going on in this area and to hear about the all of your company and all of us. Jeremy, I hope you'll come back, because I do think this is certainly this is something
we talk about a lot here at Bloomberg. Jeremy Bains, he's president of Nesta, and he joins us on the phone from Houston, Texas.