From The Australian, Entrepreneur:
Travel broadened the mind for an adventurer who is into cleaner motoring, writes Ed Charles | July 27, 2007
IN starting a business or achieving anything in life, timing and chance play as large a part as passion. For Daniel Epstein, a lifelong environmentalist who recently returned to Melbourne after living in San Francisco and then Byron Bay, all three came together earlier this year.
First, global warming and the environment reached the political agenda and was brought to the front of the general public’s mind. Second, a chance meeting at a friend’s wedding led him to one of Australia’s biggest privately owned companies, the Victor Smorgon Group. Third, they both shared an unflinching belief in biofuels.
The Smorgon company Energetix produces 100million litres of biodiesel each year. And Epstein’s contact was the group’s boss, Peter Edwards, who was interested in his vision for a boutique biofuel station in Melbourne as an opportunity to promote his products.
Epstein was talking with South Australia Farmers Fuels (SAFF) and a potential investor from Sydney but the former didn’t offer enough flexibility and latter not enough finance.
The project came together when Edwards identified a site on High Street, Prahran, in Melbourne, which had been a privately held servo for 44 years and was in limbo after objections to a proposed property development. While the site will eventually be redeveloped, it gives Conservo an 18-month window to trial the market for its innovative mix of a green fuel station and shop, known as the Eco Living Centre.
“It really is a concept servo,” says Epstein. “We are just giving it a whirl. I’m dealing with business people and myself. We know that we are not prepared to throw a bunch of money at something unless it’s working.”
Epstein says the economics of petrol stations is that they make most of their money in their shops rather than by selling fuel. He says the formula is the same for Conservo.
Energetix is financing the forecourt, which stocks three fuels, all of which can run in normal cars, even those that require high-octane fuel. There is a 28,000 litre tank of E10, a 94 octane mix of 90 per cent unleaded fuel and 10 per cent ethanol; a 14,000 litre tank of B20, a mix of 80 per cent diesel and 20per cent biodiesel; and 2000 litres of B100, a 100per cent biodiesel.
The shop is a venture between Epstein and marketing man Dean Joel, who came up with the name Conservo. It sells green magazines, organic milk, drinks, snacks and lavatory paper and has four staff.
As with any start-up, the graft is hard. Epstein himself works for 44 hours a week and the other staff operate it for the other 44 hours. Indeed, Epstein was serving customers while being interviewed for this story.
Conservo, having opened late last month, seems to have caught the public’s imagination and is selling 2500-3000 litres of fuel a day. The Victorian Government called and is interested in endorsing the project and promoting biofuels across the state.
“If that happens and then the public in Melbourne embrace us, which seems to be happening, then we certainly have expansion in mind,” Epstein says. “That’s the only really viable way to make a viable business in service stations. I can see four of five rolling out across Melbourne.”
For Epstein, 35 and president of Melbourne Biofuels Association, Conservo is the culmination of lifelong environmentalism, including work with organisations such as Greenpeace. “I was always very conscious that the only real way to make real change was in the boardroom,” he says. He argues against the views of “hard core feral greenies” who think people should stop using cars and paper, instead taking a pragmatic view. “I was saying, guys that’s just not going to happen. If you are going to make major changes you are going to need to do it in a moderate level so you can impact the most people, like recycling at home.”
His point is that 20 years ago nobody knew what to do with their rubbish, just as now few people use biofuels. But now everybody is recycling. “That’s the kind of changes I’m interested in.”
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