The Nederlandse Biodiesel uit Afval Alliantie (NBAA), the Dutch Waste-Based Biodiesel Alliance, presented an eight-point action plan to four members of the Dutch parliament, calling for immediate policy measures to strengthen energy security and strategic autonomy through greater use of waste-based biodiesel (FAME). The alliance's five member producers, Bio Oil Group, Greenergy, Argent Energy, Chevron Renewable Energy Group and Münzer, together hold roughly 710,000 tonnes of annual FAME production capacity in the Netherlands and 1.3 million tonnes across the wider EU.
The Scale Argument Behind the Plan
NBAA frames its core case around energy security rather than emissions alone: its members' Dutch production capacity, converted to litres, equals roughly 13.4% of the diesel volume the Netherlands registered in 2025, or the equivalent of about 49 days of national diesel consumption. Deployed as FAME, that capacity is projected to cut Dutch emissions by roughly 2.5 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent annually, rising to about 4.6 million tonnes if the alliance's full EU-wide capacity is counted.
Why the Alliance Frames Biodiesel and Electrification as Complementary, Not Competing
NBAA co-chair Dickon Posnett's own framing was explicit: "record-high diesel prices serve as a stark reminder that energy security cannot be taken for granted," and waste-based biodiesel offers a solution "available today, produced in Europe and sustainable," deployable through existing infrastructure without new investment. The plan explicitly supports electrification wherever technically and economically feasible, while arguing electrification alone cannot deliver a safe, resilient energy system for transport in the short to medium term, since large parts of the existing car, truck, inland-shipping and maritime fleets will remain in use for decades regardless of how quickly new vehicles electrify.
The Specific Numbers Behind Each Transport Mode
For passenger cars, the plan notes the Dutch diesel car fleet has already shrunk from 14.9% to 6.2% of registrations since 2019, but roughly 583,000 diesel cars remain on Dutch roads; the alliance's own documents move between two figures for the emissions benefit of shifting the market standard from B7 to B10, citing 34,000 tonnes of CO2 reduction annually in one chart and 45,000 tonnes in the accompanying text, a discrepancy the plan itself does not reconcile. For heavy road transport, where more than 144,000 diesel trucks, some 96% of the Dutch commercial heavy fleet, each travel nearly six times the annual distance of a passenger car, the plan estimates that raising blends to B20 or B30 could cut emissions by 1.32 to 2.34 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent annually. For inland shipping, the plan cites a Dutch research organisation TNO study supporting the technical feasibility of higher FAME blends, while noting that when technical issues do occur on biodiesel-blended vessels, biodiesel is often blamed initially even when follow-up investigation frequently traces the actual cause elsewhere, a perception gap the plan says continues to make shipowners, operators and insurers cautious regardless of the demonstrated technical feasibility.
The Specific Regulatory Inconsistency the Plan Flags for Maritime
The plan's most pointed policy criticism concerns the Netherlands' current maritime rules: it states the Netherlands is among a small minority of EU member states that does not currently let FAME made from Annex IX-B waste feedstocks count toward shipping-sector obligations under the national transposition of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED III), even though the same fuel can already be used to meet obligations under the EU's FuelEU Maritime regulation, creating what the plan calls a direct inconsistency between Dutch national policy and European maritime rules. At the same time, the plan explicitly supports maintaining a separate, existing restriction excluding non-EU "T1" biodiesel from counting toward Dutch obligations, while continuing to allow EU-origin "T2" biodiesel, arguing that allowing biodiesel produced outside the EU's own trade and sustainability rules to count would undermine European production capacity and create an uneven playing field.
The Policy Timeline the Plan Places Itself Within
The plan traces Dutch biofuel policy back to 2007, when the first blending obligation was introduced, through RED I in 2009, RED II in 2018, and RED III's national implementation, delayed from 2025 and ultimately finalised in June 2026. It notes that in 2025, the Netherlands specifically lowered its annual obligation for inland shipping and maritime transport, citing concerns about maintaining a level playing field with neighbouring countries, Belgium named specifically, and the resulting effects on the competitiveness of Dutch ports and bunkering activity. Road transport's own annual obligation, by contrast, is set to rise from 18.9% to 28.4% between 2026 and 2030, alongside a shift from the existing HBE renewable-energy-unit accounting system to a new system based directly on greenhouse gas reduction performance rather than energy-unit accounting, removing double counting in the process.
What the Plan Explicitly Asks For
The eight recommendations split into two groups: four aimed at energy security and strategic autonomy (formally recognising Dutch and European biodiesel production as a strategic pillar of energy policy, safeguarding access to waste and residue feedstocks through stable regulation, providing long-term policy certainty to enable investment, and maintaining a technology-neutral approach treating biofuels and electrification as complementary), and four aimed specifically at scaling higher blends (a roadmap toward B10 as the standard diesel fuel for passenger cars, support for B20-B30 blends in heavy road transport by resolving OEM warranty restrictions, allowing Annex IX-B FAME to count toward Dutch maritime obligations, and public education on the safety and compatibility of higher blends).
Source: De Nederlandse Biodiesel uit Afval Alliantie, 22 September 2026.
