Cape Cod Biofuels founder receives environmental merit award

Andrew Davison, founder and owner of Cape Cod Biofuels, was presented an environmental merit award by the U.S. EPA Sept. 10 for his unique biodiesel business model that, as described by the agency, improves the air and water and increases energy and community resilience.

Over the past two decades, Cape Cod Biofuels has developed a circular, or closed-loop, business model. The company works with farmers to supply 400 restaurants with vegetable oil for their cooking operations. Once the oil is used, Cape Cod Biofuels collects it back from those 400 partners, plus used cooking oil from 500 additional restaurants in the area, and converts the material into biodiesel at its community-scale production facility in Sandwich, Massachusetts.

Cape Cod Biofuels supplies regional fleets, construction companies, landscapers, commercial fisherman, municipalities and 3,000 heating oil customers with B20 and, in some cases, B50 blends made with its own biodiesel and on- and off-road petroleum Cape Cod Biofuels sells. Since Cape Cod Biofuels blends its own fuel, the company can get retail prices for the biodiesel it manufactures. Cape Cod Biofuels also runs four company trucks on its own biodiesel.

During the 2019 National Biodiesel Conference & Expo in San Diego, Davison spoke on a panel about how Cape Cod Biofuels has been successful in writing its own grant applications and securing funding that has helped upgrade plant equipment, expand production capacity and gain more restaurant partners.

Davison’s award was one of six given to individuals and two to organizations in Massachusetts for their work to protect New England’s environment. These environmental leaders were among 25 recipients across New England honored by EPA’s New England office at the 2019 Environmental Merit Awards ceremony Sept. 10 at Faneuil Hall in Boston.

The National Biodiesel Board, of which Cape Cod Biofuels is a member, nominated Davison for the award. “I thought it was cool just to be nominated,” Davison told Biodiesel Magazine. “I didn’t think we would win. It was a nice ceremony. It’s nice to be recognized.”

Davison says he expects to produce roughly 700,000 gallons this year out of his biodiesel production facility in Sandwich, Massachusetts, which, according to EPA, removes 50,000 pounds of carbon monoxide, 6,000 pounds of hydrocarbons and 5,000 pounds of particulate matter from New England’s air in the same time period—not to mention the significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions that come along with biodiesel use.