Zeng Shu Fei did not set out to overhaul the clean energy sector. She set out to solve a problem that the industry had quietly ignored for decades, and in doing so, built one of the more consequential feedstock companies operating in the global biofuel market today.
KH Marque, the Singapore-rooted company she founded in 2021, has turned used cooking oil, the grease left behind after restaurant kitchens close for the night, into a traceable, compliance-ready commodity that now powers the decarbonization efforts of airlines and major transportation operators across the globe. The company has received a 2026 Global Recognition Award, acknowledged across the categories of Revenue Growth, Innovation, Startup Of The Year, and Leadership.
That is a notable haul for a five-year-old company. It is even more notable when you understand what KH Marque actually built to earn it.
From Kitchen Waste to Jet Fuel
Used cooking oil has always had value in theory. In practice, however, the supply chain that moves it from the collection point to the refinery has historically been fragmented, manual, and largely unverifiable. Collectors operated informally. Documentation was inconsistent. For the major energy refiners that needed a reliable, traceable, regulation-compliant feedstock, the kind that can be certified to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 88 to 93 percent compared to fossil fuels, the existing market did not deliver.
KH Marque stepped into that gap. The company built proprietary purification infrastructure across 11 countries. It launched the Green Tracker, an industry-first platform that converts oil collection data into a fully auditable record that refiners can use to meet their regulatory and sustainability commitments. The Green Tracker is not an incremental product improvement. It is the kind of structural fix that changes how an industry operates, by giving every participant in the supply chain, from the restaurant owner to the refinery buyer, a shared, verifiable source of truth.
During its evaluation for the Global Recognition Award, KH Marque received the highest available ratings across all innovation metrics, as measured using the Rasch model. This psychometric tool constructs a linear measurement scale to allow precise comparisons across applicants. Top scores across all dimensions, including novelty, market impact, technological advancement, patent strength, adoption rate, and disruption of existing norms, are not common. KH Marque earned them across the board.
The Numbers Behind the Mission
The environmental case for what KH Marque does is not complicated. When used cooking oil is diverted from improper disposal and processed into Sustainable Aviation Fuel or Renewable Diesel, it delivers an 88-93% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions at the point of end use. That figure is measured, not modeled. It shows up in the fuel tanks of the airlines and freight operators that KH Marque’s refinery clients serve.
What is more difficult, and what deserves closer attention, is the operational reality of sustaining that standard across 11 countries simultaneously. KH Marque manages a multi-national network of collection and purification hubs, each subject to different regulatory frameworks and client requirements. Business Insider, Yahoo Finance, and MSN Finance have each covered the company’s growth, with particular attention to how it maintains quality and compliance at a scale that competitors working within single-market models have not yet matched.
Building that kind of infrastructure across multiple jurisdictions in five years, while maintaining the data integrity that large energy clients demand, is a logistical and technical achievement worth taking seriously, regardless of the awards it has won or not.
A Track Record That Speaks for Itself
KH Marque’s external recognition extends well beyond the Global Recognition Award. The company earned the Chief Trailblazer of the Year distinction at the S&P Global Energy Awards 2025, reached the finalist stage for SME of the Year at the Reuters Global Sustainability Awards 2025, received a Gold Award at the 2025 Dun & Bradstreet Singapore Business Eminence Awards, and claimed multiple Platinum honors at the TITAN Business Awards, covering Environment of the Year, Innovator of the Year, Sustainability Leader of the Year, and Net Zero Achievement of the Year.
Each of those platforms runs its own independent evaluation process. Together, they reflect consistent, cross-sector validation of a company that has built real infrastructure and delivered measurable climate impact, not just a compelling pitch deck. Alex Sterling, a spokesperson for Global Recognition Awards, noted, “KH Marque sets a clear standard for what world-class achievement looks like in this industry, having built something technically original while maintaining the operational rigor, leadership integrity, and measurable climate impact that earned it a 2026 Global Recognition Award.”
Where sustainability claims often outpace the underlying operations across the broader industry, KH Marque has taken a different approach: it built the system first. It lets the results make the argument, one verifiable barrel at a time.