Meet the Chairs - Matthias Maedge

We finish our Meet the Chairs series with an interview with Matthias Maedge, Chair of FCE's Sustainability Working Group. In it, we discuss how can fleet cards support Europe's transition to decarbonised road transport.

What is the Sustainability Working Group and what does it focus on?
FCE's Sustainability Working Group brings our members together to analyse the ways in which the European institutions intend to shape the regulatory framework on the decarbonisation of commercial road transportation and position the fleet cards industry towards carbon neutrality. We engage with decision makers to make sure that the “voice” of independent fleet card issuers is heard. In fact, we are the industry with the closest insights of the road transport industry, the vast majority of B2B services and products needed by companies every day, ranging from energy to tolls or financing are managed by FCE members. The biggest priority of our group is management of the energy transition to ensure that companies and small businesses with vehicle fleets can effectively switch to alternative energy sources and reduce the carbon intensity of their fleet emissions.

What are your goals for next year?
Well, it is a very dynamic moment when it comes to legislation concerning sustainable road transport. Managing the electrification of commercial vehicle fleets is certainly one of the biggest challenges. We are concerned when it comes to the review of AFIR as the Regulation is designed for passenger cars and the B2C market, the B2 market and needs are quite different, we must need to address this. Our members have a lot of expertise and experience in this regard, so our inputs can help with smarter policy making. Another important topic concerns the Working Group on CO2 Monitoring and Reporting Mechanisms (WGMM), we joined the group and successfully included fleet cars as one key methodology to track the use and emissions of sustainable renewable fuels, which remain critically important to reach Europe’s ambitious decarbonisation objectives. 

What do you enjoy most about your role?
The members of FCE cover a wide range of products and customer segments in all of Europe. Our Working Group therefore needs to follow sometimes very diverse issues sitting at the intersection between mobility and sustainability. Cooperating with our members and knowledgable experts on complex issues really excited me.

The challenge is to steer the discussion with one common goal in mind, we must translate our practical experience into agreed common positions in order to covey a clear and strong message to support the decision making process and also point to problems we see.