In addition to mattresses, sports floors and textile fibres, Covestro has opened up a further area of application for the use of CO2 in plastics production: now foams for the automotive industry can also be produced partly using carbon dioxide instead of fossil raw materials such as crude oil. The innovative precursor cardyon® is used for this purpose, with which the Swiss company FoamPartner produces foams for various areas in the vehicle interior.
Metsä Group is planning to construct a new Kerto® LVL mill on its expanding mill area in Äänekoski, Finland. The final decision on the investment, the value of which is approximately EUR 200 million, is pending the completion of a local detailed plan for the area. The new Kerto LVL mill is expected to use around 375,000 cubic metres of log procured from Finland.
Evoco is an innovative cleantech company. Its CEO, Jason Robinson, talks to Il Bioeconomista. “We’re focused on developing and producing renewable, sustainable and plant-based chemistry as alternatives to petroleum-based materials and products”, he tells us.
Interview by Mario Bonaccorso
Univar Solutions Inc., a global chemical and ingredient distributor and provider of value-added services, signed a new agreement with Novozymes, expanding their relationship to include biological solutions for waste and wastewater treatment in the United States and Canada. Longtime global partners, the new agreement follows previous announcements expanding the partnership into a range of markets in the United States, Canada and Latin America.
Over the last seven years, the BBI JU has established itself as a game-changer in the European bio-based economy. By replacing fossil-based materials and products with bio-based ones, using local, sustainably sourced feedstock and developing circular production processes, the BBI JU-funded projects have given an important contribution to the green transition in Europe. A new publication takes stock of BBI JU’s achievements and impacts in the 2014-2020 period.
Total Corbion PLA’s plant in Rayong Thailand has, since its grand opening in 2019, earlier this summer reached a cumulative production volume of 100kT of Luminy® PLA. The plant is now running at name plate capacity of 75kT annually in order to meet the evergrowing demand for PLA bioplastics.
Cargill and German company HELM entered into a joint venture, Qore, to help leading brands replace fossil-based chemistries with bio-based intermediates, enabling them to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. As part of the agreement, both companies are investing a combined $300M to build the first commercial-scale, renewable BDO facility in the U.S. Bio-based intermediates give the apparel, automotive, electronics and packaging industries the ability to improve their environmental footprint without sacrificing product performance or altering their existing downstream manufacturing processes.
Carbon transformation company Twelve and biotechnology company LanzaTech partnered to transform CO2 emissions into polypropylene, a key polymer used for medical devices including syringes and IV bags, as well as for large-scale applications in automotive, furniture, textiles and other everyday products.
“Already now, the circular and sustainable bioeconomy is contributing to all dimensions and objectives of the European Green Deal. Through the substitution of fossil-based products and materials and through carbon sequestration in soil and forests, together with its storage in harvested wood products, the bioeconomy can generate significant carbon savings to reduce the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030”. To say this is a European Commission’s official, who prefers to remain anonymous. In this long interview with Il Bioeconomista, the Commission’s official talk about the Green New Deal, the bioeconomy and the partnership Circular Bio-based Europe.
Interview by Mario Bonaccorso
lululemon Athletica inc. signed a multi-year collaboration with sustainable materials leader Genomatica to bring renewably-sourced, bio-based materials into lululemon’s products. This represents lululemon’s first-ever equity investment in a sustainable materials company and Genomatica’s largest partnership within the retail industry. Together, the two companies will create a lower-impact, plant-based nylon to replace conventional nylon, which is the largest volume of synthetic material currently used to make lululemon products.
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