Düsseldorf 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.