Honorary Members

Gustav Melin

Gustav Melin was Svebio’s CEO from 2008 to 2023, and was prior to that a part of the board. Gustav is an agronomist and has placed great great emphasis on spreading knowledge about the potential for biomass growth and increased bioenergy use in a sustainable way in his work. He emphasizes that bioenergy solutions are competitive against other types of energy, if the other alternatives have to pay for their fossil carbon dioxide emissions or do not receive subsidies.

During the years 2010 – 2016, Gustav was president of Bioenergy Europe, which during the period grew from four employees to nearly 20. This was primarily due to the development of the ENplus certification of pellets. Gustav constantly propagated within Bioenergy Europe the advantages of using general control instruments, such as price on carbon dioxide emissions and fees for emissions of NOx and particles, as opposed to support and subsidies. Before Gustav became CEO o Svebio, he was a board member in the association and represented the agricultural sector during the period 1995 to April 2008. During most of this time, he was CEO of Lantmännenägda Agrobränsle AB, which developed Salixo farming. In total, Gustav has been active in Svebio for 28 years, when the use of bioenergy in Sweden has become increasingly established and increased from 20 to 40 percent of Sweden’s energy use.

After his work as CEO at Svebio, Gustav continues with bioenergy development in various assignments via his own company Bioenergy Works AB. The main assignment is currently with the company BK Tech Group AB, which focuses on international sales of burner systems and steam applications with renewable fuels to various industries.

Kjell Andersson

Kjell Andersson came to Svebio in 2003 to primarily work with external information and worked at Svebio’s office until the spring of 2024. Over time, he came to take over the economic policy monitoring and in later years was the economic policy manager. Kjell Andersson is a journalist and for fifteen years was active at the newspaper Land, as an environmental reporter and for a time also editor-in-chief. He was subsequently head of information in Centerpartiet. Kjell Andersson has written a lot about bioenergy, for example the book Bioenergy – the Swedish experience, which was published in two editions, the latest in 2015, and a report from the UN’s renewable energy organization, IRENA, entitled Bioenergy from boreal forests: Swedish approach to sustainable wood use, 2019, as well as the report Roadmap Bioenergi – how we meet the need for bioenergy for fossil-free Sweden, 2020. Kjell Andersson has been responsible publisher for the magazine Bioenergi and publisher for Bioenergy International. He has been the editor of the newsletter Bioenerginytt (BIN-BIP) and wrote the Svebiobloggen with posts every week for ten years. He has participated in Bioenergy Europe’s work, including as chairman of the organization’s working group for sustainability issues, and closely followed the work within the EU regarding directives that provide framework conditions for the bioenergy industry.

Karin Haara 

Karin Haara has spent most of her professional career developing the bioenergy sector in Sweden and internationally. She started as head of office at the Swedish Bioenergy Association (Svebio) in 1988, but started working as a consultant for Svebio via the company Novator AB as early as 1983 . At that time, the tasks were mainly about needs analyses, statistics, fact sheets, study trips, conferences and news distribution through the newspapers Bioenergi and the newsletter BioenergiNytt, as well as new projects such as the formation of the phytochemistry group. In 1995, EU projects started and Karin became more involved internationally. After the year 2000, she also began to support the export of Swedish bioenergy know-how and technology all over the world, which made her involved in collaborations with various actors. In 2008, the World Bioenergy Association (WBA) was founded with Kent Nyström as the initiator. Karin was hired two years after its formation as Executive Director and worked in WBA until her retirement in 2017. Today she continues to be associated with WBA as a senior advisor.

Karin has followed Svebio’s development right from the beginning, which made it natural for her to collect and systematize all available material about Svebio’s history from 1980-2010 after her tenure at WBA. The material was handed over to the National Archives in 2022 to be available for future research.

Hans Hessner

Hans Hessner was appointed as member auditor at Svebio in 1982. At the time, Hans was managing director at Modo’s head office. Prior to this he was CEO for Stille Verner. In the early 1980’s Svebio experienced strong expansion, but the development came to a halt when the “electricity boom” reached its peak with the commissioning of the two last nuclear reactors in 1985. Tax exemptions and investment grants were introduced, along with new regulations for the abolition of chimney requirements and boiler rooms for new houses. The market for biofuels came to a sudden stop. A successful organizational change was made at Svebio, and Hans Hessner was given a crucial task as an advisor to the association’s management board., and the association continued to develop into an important forum for bioenergy. Svebio was well-prepared when the carbon dioxide tax was introduced, and once again biofuels gained political momentum.

Jan Häckner

Started as a treasurer in Svebio and was appointed as an executive member (vl) in 1987. Jan has spent the majority of his working life in the forestry industry and has worked as CEO for various forestry associations. During a period of time he also worked with economic policy for LRF. When Jan Häckner participated in the “Environmental Tax Commission,” acidification of forests, soil, and water was the focus. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that climate change became the main issue in environmental policy. When Jan ended his tenure as vl in Svebio in 1995, the board established the “Jan Häckner Bioenergy Scholarship,” which is awarded annually to individuals who have made contributions to the development of bioenergy. Jan Häckner was succeeded as vl in Svebio by Kent Nyström.

Eddie Johansson

Was Svebio’s chairman for three years around the turn of the millennium. His bioenergy career began with the construction of a cogeneration plant in Enköping, planting energy crops irrigated with water from the Enköping sewage treatment plant, and returning biofuel ash mixed with digested sludge to farmland. Allowing Enköping to become independent of fossil fuels. Eddie Johansson’s bioenergy commitment now continues within Rindi Energi with projects in Poland and pellet production.

Jarl Mared

Was a member of Svebio’s board from the early 1980s until the beginning of the 2000s, including serving as chairman during the years when the foundation was laid for a stable future for bioenergy. He was also a long-standing board member of the Swedish Wood Fuel Association and initiated the founding of the National Association of Pellet Industry (PIR), where he served as chairman during some of PIR’s early years. Started selling bark boilers as early as the 1960s and imported the first briquette press to Sweden in 1976. Founded Svensk BrikettEnergi (SBE) in 1982, the country’s largest producer of refined biofuels since its inception. Established the country’s first privately owned district heating plant in 1983. SBE was later sold to Svenska Lantmännen, which renamed the company Lantmännen Agro Energi AB. At that time, SBE owned and operated nine manufacturing units for pellets, briquettes, and powder, as well as several district heating plants/local heating centers.

Kent Nyström

Executive member of Svebio between 1995 and 2008. Kent worked for a total of 24 years at Uppsala Energi, including serving as head of the planning department and overseeing the production and distribution of district heating at Uppsala Energi. He has also led various industrial projects. The largest one was the conversion of the Uppsala cogeneration plant from oil to peat combustion, passing through coal. Kent has also been involved in the deregulation of the electricity market in Sweden, energy taxation, environmental issues, and the greenhouse effect related to peat combustion and waste incineration.

Between 1998 and 2002, Kent was the President of the European Biomass Association (AEBIOM) in Brussels. In 2008, he was appointed President of the World Bioenergy Association, a global organization working with all types of bioenergy.

Ulf Johnsson

Served on the board of Svebio for 18 years, including several years as vice chairman. Ulf’s contributions to bioenergy within Växjö Energi AB involved being responsible for combined heat and power production for 35 years, among other things, and initiating investments in biofuels. Växjö was the first in Sweden to use biofuels for large-scale district heating production in 1980 and for combined heat and power production in 1983. In 1996, they started an almost entirely biofuel-based district heating production, along with a completely biofuel-based electricity production.

Tomas Kåberger

Tomas Kåberger joined Svebio’s board in 1990 when he worked as an energy secretary at the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation. Despite changing employers multiple times, he remained loyal to Svebio and served as the organization’s chairman from 2002 to 2008. He left when the government appointed him the Director-General of the Swedish Energy Agency. He was involved in initiating World Bioenergy and served as the conference chairman for all World Bioenergy conferences until 2014. Kåberger has had an academic career and is a professor at Chalmers University. Since 2007, he has been a guest professor in biofuel technology at Zhejiang University in China. He has worked intermittently for bioenergy companies and energy firms. Since 2011, he has also served as the chairman of the Japan Renewable Energy Foundation and spends a quarter of his time in Japan.

Bo Hektor

Bo Hektor has been a long-standing active member of Svebio, contributing many years of commendable work as a member auditor. In recent years, Bo has been the project leader for IEA-Bioenergy Annex 40, focusing on international trade of biofuels. Bo possesses extensive knowledge of forests and their carbon balance, as well as the management regimes, traditions, and legislation surrounding forests in different countries. For our office, Bo has been a valuable conversation partner for many years, with a rich international network, dedicated to the positive advancement of bioenergy.

Henrik Lundberg

Henrik Lundberg was one of the original initiators of Svebio. Henrik has been active in his own companies within the bioenergy industry, unique as an entrepreneur and business developer. As far as we can remember, he has served on the nominating committee and actively engaged in the association’s positive development and establishment in the energy sector in Sweden, as well as the development of bioenergy. In recent years, Henrik Lundberg has been a board member.