4 minutes with… Jens Sogaard Jacobsen, Group Sales Director, MBP Group

Tell us about your company and it’s role in the Advanced Bioeconomy.

MBP Group works closely together with a number of manufacturing companies that process biological products. We manage their by-products and ensure that this potential waste is brought to optimal use in the bioeconomy. Examples of applications are: HFO and LFO replacement, CHP fuel, feedstock for biodiesel production, biogas, animal feed, etc.

Tell us about your role and what you are focused on in the next 12 months.

MBP Group has been succesfull in developing partnerships with industries in several sectors, our partners include multinationals like: BASF, DSM, Croda and FMC as well as smaller locals. Going forward it will be our goal to communicate our unique by-product concept to more industries.

We are building competency focus on various critical application areas, as a good understanding of the products as well as customers’ requirements are critical to the optimisation of value.

Keeping up with legal development is challenging. Our structure with local offices in several countries allows us to keep on top of local legislation. Biannual legal reviews secures compliance.

Supply chain management is critical and our work includes optimising the infrastructure at suppliers as well as customers. MBP manages tank storage facilities in five countries.

What do you feel are the most important milestones the industry must achieve in the next 5 years?  

Competitive costs: in order for the production to scale up costs need to be reduced. In many cases this seems hard to imagine.

Sustainability: in order to be acceptable in the long run the bioeconomy needs to be sustainable. Easy to say – difficult to document. A trustworthy concept is the EU RED standards – but associated costs are very high.

If you could snap your fingers and change one thing about the Advanced Bioeconomy, what would you change? 

As most projects (if any) are not competitive from a cost point of view, the most important condition for making any investment then becomes that you can trust that the legislation will be stable. Alas you cannot trust this.

Of all the reasons that influenced you to join the Advanced Bioeconomy industry, what single reason stands out for you as still being compelling and important to you?  

Being involved in recycling and optimal use of by-products is a daily source of inspiration and feeling of: I’m spending my life doing something, which makes sense.

Where are you from? 

I spent my childhood in the countryside in Denmark, Europe.

What was your undergraduate major in college, and where did you attend? Why did you choose that school and that pathway?

I studied modern languages in college and later went on the university to get a Maaster in forestry at the University of Copenhagen. At that time I wanted to work in the primary sector from a more academical perspective. I’m now living in Switzerland doing business worldwide and using my language skills on a daily basis.

Who do you consider your mentors – could be personal, business, or just people you have read about and admire. What have you learned from them?

I wouldn’t point to any particular person. For me the lifechanging experience was my executive MBA at Copenhagen Business School, which gave me a lots of inspiration and tools.

What’s the biggest lesson you ever learned during a period of adversity?  

We have gone through difficult times in our business and I have learned that keeping calm, doing your analysis and implementing on the individual elements together with hard work can get you out on the other side.

What hobbies do you pursue, away from your work in the industry?  

I used to go windsurfing, now I have taken up playing competitive table tennis again. I also like to go cross country or alpine skiing with my family and friends and profit from nearby worldclass facilities.

What are 3 books you’d want to have with you, if you were stranded on a desert island

I would finally finish my James Joyce

What books or articles are on your reading list right now, or you just completed and really enjoyed?  

I continue to enjoy The Economist and the occasional Scandinavian Novel.

What’s your favorite city or place to visit, for a holiday?  

Has to be the region Thy in Denmark close to the North Sea, where I grew up.