Jacqueline Cramer chairperson of the Green Gold Label Foundation

At Essent's request, the former Dutch Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, Jacqueline Cramer, takes on the chairmanship of the Green Gold Label Foundation. The foundation’s goal is to make Green Gold Label the leading, independent and widely accepted certification programme for sustainable biomass in Europe.

Green Gold Label was founded in 2002 by Essent and Skal International (now Control Union Certifications). Green Gold Label has now been registered and is owned by the independent Green Gold Label Foundation of which Jacqueline Cramer is now the chairperson.

Erwin van Laethem, CEO of Essent: “Biomass already provides many dozen percents of the sustainable energy production in the Netherlands and that percentage will grow during the future years. Companies outside of the Netherlands will also start to use more biomass in order to achieve the climate objectives. In our view it is beyond dispute that the biomass itself will also be harvested, treated, sold and used in a sustainable manner.”

The Green Gold Label instills confidence that the biomass will comply with the high sustainability standards. The label that has already certified biomass in more than 15 companies in 9 countries has, to date, been fully financed by Essent. Essent wishes to ensure that the foundation is fully independent and therefore wants to encourage a wide circle of stakeholders to use, finance and co-manage the label. Erwin van Laethem: “Under the direction of Mrs Cramer, our aim is for the platform to serve as the basis for the formation of an international sustainability standard for biomass. We could not have wished for a better chairperson.”

Wide access

“To be able to create a socially accepted, international sustainability standard, the Green Gold Label Foundation needs a wide range of participants”, said Jacqueline Cramer. “That is why producers of biomass, trading companies, end-users and NGOs are welcome. Parties from the entire biomass chain should jointly establish and disseminate the standard, so that biomass can start to constitute an essential and sustainable part of both green energy production and the biobased economy.”

About Green Gold Label

The Green Gold Label Foundation is a non-profit organisation which has the ambition to provide the leading, authoritative, independent, widely accepted certification programme for sustainable biomass in Europe. Since 2002, almost 4.5 million tonnes of biomass has been Green Gold Label certified.

About Utrecht Sustainability Institute

Utrecht Sustainability Institute (USI) collects the research relating to sustainability from ten knowledge institutes in the region of Utrecht (altogether more than 1,500 researchers) in close cooperation with market parties. Prof. Dr. Jacqueline Cramer is the director of the USI and also a professor in sustainable innovation at Utrecht University. She was chairperson of the ‘Criteria for the use of biomass’ project group (known as the 'Cramer Commissie') established by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (2006 – 2007). As the Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (2007-2010), she actively and successfully introduced the sustainability criteria that had been drawn up in an EU and international context.

Published: 30 January 2012