Organisation steps up efforts to structurally embed demand for low-carbon commodities and accelerate green industrial transition.
Tuesday 1st October, Washington, DC; The Hague: the Mission Possible Partnership (MPP) announces the appointment of Dick Benschop as the new Chair of its Board, commencing today. Dick was appointed with the unanimous backing of the Board as the previous Chair, Chad Holliday, stepped down at his term’s end on 30th September. Chad Holliday will continue to serve on MPP's board and will join our cohort of Senior Fellows.
A current member of the MPP Board since 2021, Dick brings a wealth of experience gained in both the private sector and the Government of the Netherlands. During his extensive career he served as President and CEO of the Royal Schiphol Group, the owner and operator of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and Rotterdam’s Hague Airport. In this role, he was one of the committed industry leaders actively involved in MPP since its launch in 2019. He also spent 14 years at Royal Dutch Shell where he held several leadership positions, including President of Royal Dutch Shell Netherlands. Prior to that, he served as the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Government of the Netherlands attending some of the earliest UN Climate Change meetings. Throughout his career and via his other non-executive positions, Dick has had regular engagement with the aviation, wider transport, and heavy industry sectors. He also stepped in as interim CEO of MPP in the Spring 2024, as CEO Faustine Delasalle was on maternity leave.
Dick Benschop said: “Transforming and decarbonising industry is the critical next step in the climate change challenge, that’s what drew me to MPP initially and it’s why I am deeply honoured to be taking over the role as Chair.
Chad has done a fantastic job in stewarding MPP in its establishment as an organisation that is capable of galvanising action at the highest levels. It is rare in the way it brings governments, think-tanks, and companies together to drive decarbonisation projects and scale up green industry – and it is business relevant, connecting strategies and insights with practical on the ground support. Faustine leads a team who are relentless in their drive to accelerate progress and to implement the actions needed to meet 2030 decarbonisation goals. I look forward to continuing this work with them.”
Since establishing itself as a wholly independent not-for-profit entity in 2022, MPP’s focus has been on unlocking major green industrial projects in seven heavy industry and transport sectors—aluminium, chemicals, concrete and cement, steel, aviation, shipping, and trucking—to ensure that 700 decarbonised plants are operating by the turn of the decade and that sectors can get on track for net-zero 2050.
MPP’s approach is focused on improving conditions for investment, by working with project developers in clean industrial hubs around the world on issues like local industrial policy, planning and permitting, energy and port infrastructure, and scaling demand for green commodities (including clean ammonia, green steel, green cement, or Sustainable Aviation Fuel) to spread the green premium, trigger cost reductions through economies of scale, and rapidly establish their markets as alternatives to fossil-based products. Through the Industrial Transition Accelerator (ITA) a global multistakeholder initiative launched at COP28, MPP is working directly with governments in developing economies to support their pipeline of green industrial projects, including in Brazil.
2024 has seen MPP launch its Global Projects Tracker, mapping industrial decarbonisation globally and shedding new light on the state of transition across the heavy industry and transport sectors. It recently unveiled a toolkit for green market acceleration with recommendations to prioritise new innovative intermediaries – called Green Market Makers – for buying and selling low-carbon commodities, bridging the price premium while enhancing the efficiency of public spending on the industry transition. And through the ITA, it has launched a Standards Map that outlines the international standards that define low-carbon and zero-carbon products to bring greater clarity and confidence to buyers.
MPP Chief Executive Officer, Faustine Delasalle, thanked Chad for his service and welcomed Dick’s appointment, saying: “I am honoured to have worked alongside Chad for several years and grateful to have benefitted from his mentorship. His strong commitment to MPP’s success, generous leadership and broad influence across industries have been instrumental to the organisation’s establishment as a go-to centre of excellence on industry decarbonisation.
I am looking forward to working more closely with Dick, who is a trusted ally of MPP since its inception. He steps into the Chair at a pivotal moment. The window of opportunity to unlock investment in green industrial plants that could be up and running by 2030 is closing down fast. We are on the cusp of a green industrial revolution, but it is still being held back. From our continued engagement with corporates and our extensive mapping work, we know that scaling up demand for green products that still command a higher cost than the high-carbon alternative is the missing piece that will kick-start low-carbon commodity markets at pace, enable the financing to flow into major industrial green projects, and drive cost reduction. Embedding this green demand is our priority as we move forward, and Dick’s extensive experience in both industry and in Government will be invaluable as we do.”
-ENDS-
Notes to editors
- MPP’s Global Project Tracker is available at tracker.missionpossiblepartnership.org
- Unleashing market forces to scale green industry: the role of Green Market Markers is available at gmm.missionpossiblepartnership.org
- MPP hosts the ITA secretariat, with CEO Faustine Delasalle providing day-to-day delivery and driving its workstreams More information is available at ita.missionpossiblepartnership.org
About MPP
The Mission Possible Partnership (MPP) is a movement of climate leaders in business and civil society working to decarbonise seven hard-to-abate industrial and mobility sectors: aluminium, aviation, cement and concrete, chemicals, shipping, steel and trucking. MPP’s 2030 Milestones are real-economy targets for action in this decade to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, developed from sector transition strategies endorsed by more than 200 companies. MPP was founded to foster radical collaboration between stakeholders in industry, finance, and policy by four founding partners: the Energy Transitions Commission, RMI, the We Mean Business Coalition and the World Economic Forum.