The history of enespa - how it all began
It all started with a relaxed dinner. Because the best ideas are not born at a desk, but on napkins. They seem to appear out of nowhere, but always have a back story.
The story of enespa is all about agricultural machinery, rapeseed oil and combined heat and power plants and takes place in several locations around Europe. What doesn't seem to fit together had to take place in exactly this order for everything to fall into place over dinner in Appenzell. At the time, I would never have thought that 10 years later I, Cyrill Hugi, the manager spoilt by success, would have to fear for the existence of my employees with the last 5 francs in my account.
Plastic is a resource that we simply throw away today and that has therefore become an environmental problem.
I had to overcome many abstacles on my journey with enespa. But ever since that dinner, I have had a vision of a world without plastic waste. Because waste, especially plastic, is a resource that we simply throw away today and that has therefore become an environmental problem. Animals are dying in the sea because of us. We are only just beginning to study the consequences of microplastics for humans. The future doesn't look as good for my four sons as it did for me when I was their age.
Rapeseed oil for CO2 reduction
We should not simply incinerate plastic waste, but return it to the cycle.
In mathematical terms, the use of rapeseed was initially worthwhile. We produced the rapeseed oil ourselves. We travelled all the way to Ukraine to buy rapeseed and ground and pressed it ourselves. But because the price of rapeseed rose, it was suddenly no longer profitable. We also felt that it was wrong to burn food.
Plastic cycle
After the meal and still sitting at the table, Stefan Abele and I decided not to simply burn plastic waste, but to close the cycle in order to save even more CO2 . When new plastic is made from old plastic, less fossil oil is used. Today 99 per cent of plastic is made from fossil fuels. The amount of plastic in the world increases every year: in our oceans, in our food, everywhere. And outsourcing to a country like China, for example, cannot solve this problem.
We want to recover the original raw material: crude oil. This can be used to produce all types of plastic that the industry needs.
Only with a circular economy we can stand up to plastic in the environment. The aim of enespa is to bring all types of plastic back into circulation in the future, from old plastic chairs and broken nylon stockings to worn-out car tyres - simply everything that has been made from plastic and therefore crude oil or rubber.
Recycling technology
I remembered my father. During the war, he drove a so-called wood carburetor . Wood carburetors were used to overcome the fuel shortage during the Second World War. The operating principle: wood is converted into gas and liquid fuel at high temperatures. I thought: if that is possible, it must also be possible with plastic. And so it is! Through the so-called pyrolysis process, the chemical conversion of plastic to oil takes place.
Despite all the results, I wanted to prove that profitable production is possible.
Tinkering time in Bulgaria
Through my research, I got to know the right people in Bulgaria entirely by chance. A chemist and two engineers. People from the university in Sofia who had the necessary inventive spirit to build the first small test systems with me. Welding and grinding still worked the same way as they did when I was an apprentice blacksmith and agricultural machinery mechanic, so I lent a hand. Together with these people, after three tough years, I was finally able to prove that my idea did work.
I gave up my well-paid managerial position. Many people shook their heads at the time. Today I am admired for it.
My time in Bulgaria made me humble. Who in Switzerland would have welded thick steel beams or boiled plastic in a kettle outside our open barracks in temperatures of -15°? We Western Europeans tend to think that our western technology is the measure of all things. That is arrogant and not true. I would go so far as to say that you can't have genuine proper improvisation here. I only learnt this in Bulgaria, a country that works in a completely different way from Switzerland, Germany or Italy.
Early days in Germany
With the proof in our pockets, Stefan Abele and I moved on to Germany, his home country. A country where you can rely on promises, agreed times and punctuality. We found a subcontractor in Neuried, near Munich, where I lived for a while and where I also met Stefan Abele. We have been working with him for the past 5 years and have continued to develop our "plastic-to-oil" machine.
Banks and major investors, anyone with money, did not support us. There were no subsidies from the state either.
The establishment of our site in Neuried was the moment when I gave up my well-paid managerial position to concentrate on enespa. At the time, many people shook their heads or reacted with great astonishment. Things are different today. Today I am admired for my courage. Because we needed good people, we were very flexible from very outset. In addition to engineers in Germany, we still have Michele Loscalzo, an outstanding man from Italy, with us today. It has always been important for us to have the right people. Their skills are important to us, not where they are based.
Setbacks
I had financed enespa entirely from my own resources for 12 years. With the move to Germany and the further development of the plant, the costs increased. But for anyone with money - banks and major investors - the risk was too high and the profit too low. There were no subsidies from the state either. So we had no choice but to ask private individuals whether they wanted to support us financially so that we could continue. We sold bonds. Many private individuals liked our idea and wanted to support us.
In addition to securing funding, I have also had to deal with fraudsters over the last 20 years of enespa. Once I lost money because of this, another time someone had sold to me construction plans that had been stolen. Every entrepreneur has to be able to deal with such setbacks. However, what I never would have thought of was FINMA. This event pushed me to my limits.
Rock bottom and turning point
Today, we have every contract double and triple checked.
FINMA's large-scale inspection revealed nothing but a few formal errors. Formulations in a contract that were not sufficiently precise. I was later told that FINMA conducts around 1,000 such inspections a year and that we were only the third company to survive FINMA's long investigation. We were saved by the people who had bought bonds from us. Almost all of them, 96% of them, have converted their bonds into shares. These people are the reason why we have been able to achieve all our milestones to date and can look to the future with optimism. I will never forget the unprecedented solidarity of our current shareholders.
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The road to a circular economy for plastics is a long one. However, we are not travelling this path alone, but together with you. Celebrate with us when we come one step closer to our goal.
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The road to a circular economy for plastics is a long one. However, we are not travelling this path alone, but together with you. Celebrate with us when we come one step closer to our goal.