Another bad news for the European bio-based economy. Clariant, a sustainability-focused specialty chemical company, today announced its decision to shut down its sunliquid® bioethanol production in Podari, Romania, and to downsize related activities of the business line Biofuels & Derivatives in Germany (Straubing, Planegg and Munich).
The United Nations Climate Change Conference COP28 opens today with a resounding call to accelerate collective climate action. The conference takes place in what is already known to be the hottest year ever recorded in human history and as the impacts of the climate crisis wreak unprecedented havoc on human life and livelihoods around the world.
Emirates, one of the world’s largest international airlines, has become the first airline to operate an Airbus A380 demonstration flight with one of the aircraft’s four engines powered with Neste’s sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Emirates’ flight demonstrates the potential of SAF as a more sustainable drop-in replacement for fossil-based jet fuel, matching its technical and chemical requirements. SAF can currently be used in up to 50% blends with conventional fossil jet fuel.
“The bioeconomy can be a catalyst for sustainable systematic change and transition, tackling key economic, societal and environmental challenges”. To say it – in this exclusive interview with Il Bioeconomista – is Nicolò Giacomuzzi-Moore, Executive Director ad interim of CBE JU, Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking.
Interview by Mario Bonaccorso
Neste, Mitsui Chemicals and Prime Polymer, a subsidiary of Mitsui Chemicals, are working together to provide more sustainable food packaging solutions for CO-OP, a brand of the Japanese Consumers Co-operative Union (JCCU). In the first phase of the collaboration, bio-based raw materials will replace fossil ones in the production of the packaging material for a seaweed snack. Going forward, the companies intend to introduce bio-based raw materials also to packaging for further products.
The Air France-KLM Group is fully committed to reducing its carbon footprint and aims to be a frontrunner in sustainable aviation. In 2022, the Group was the world’s largest user of SAF, representing 17% of the world’s total production. By comparison, the Group only accounts for 3% of the world’s consumption of conventional kerosene.
Washington DC will be the center of gravity of the global bioeconomy starting from this Sunday. The US capital will host the third edition of the Global Biobased Economy Conference and Exhibition organized by the Alternative Fuels & Chemicals Coalition.
KIA Motors is using bio-based paint supplied by AkzoNobel for the inside of its new EV9 electric SUV. It’s the first time the vehicle manufacturer has specified an interior bio-based coating. Two kinds of bio-rosin (rosin is a solid form of resin) have been used to create the product, one extracted from rapeseed, the other from pine rosin. The paint can be found on the EV9’s interior door switch panels, with AkzoNobel also supplying coatings for the rest of the interior.
LanzaTech Global, Inc., the Illinois-headquartered carbon recycling company transforming waste carbon into sustainable raw materials, and Olayan Financing Company (OFC), the parent company of The Olayan Group’s businesses and investments in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, have formed a joint venture company in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to accelerate the commercial deployment of LanzaTech’s carbon recycling technology in hard-to-abate industries within the Kingdom. The joint venture will deploy and develop projects utilizing LanzaTech’s carbon recycling technology within KSA and selectively across the broader Middle East.
NatureWorks, a leading manufacturer of polylactic acid (PLA) biopolymers made from renewable resources headquartered in Minnesota (USA), made significant progress on the construction of their new fully integrated Ingeo PLA biopolymer manufacturing facility in Nakhon Sawan Province, Thailand.
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