U.S. industrial biotech company Geomatica won the prestigious 2020 Green Chemistry Challenge Award given by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its Brontide® natural butylene glycol. Honoring groundbreaking scientific solutions to real-world environmental problems, the win for Brontide natural butylene glycol marks the third EPA award held by Genomatica and makes them one of only four companies to win the award three times in the program’s 25-year history.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, I must say how grateful I am to have been invited to be with you here today as we bring together the United Nations and the Commonwealth to discuss what we are calling The Great Reset. I would also like to thank the Permanent Representatives of Canada and Jamaica for convening this meeting and Prime Minister Trudeau for his inspiring leadership on the Green Recovery.
Amyris, Inc., a leading synthetic biotechnology company based in Emeryville (California), launched “Baby Cream to Powder” under its Pipette™ baby brand giving caring parents more choice and keeping babies safe. This safe, talc-free alternative to baby powder goes on as an easy-to-apply cream to prevent and treat diaper rash and irritation and transforms into a silky powder on skin, eliminating the risk of powder inhalation. The announcement by Amyris comes on the heels of news that the largest and leading provider of baby care products will stop selling talcum-based baby powder in the U.S. and Canada amidst questions about its product safety.
The need to react to the COVID-19 crisis is a unique opportunity to transform our economy and put forward the change that our society needs to create a sustainable and desirable future. A Circular Bioeconomy Roundtable convened by HRH The Prince of Wales last week discussed how this should be done: not just by designing recovery packages, but by transformative action to trigger mission-oriented innovation, attract investments and rethink business models and markets. Leading figures from science, the investment community and industry discussed how a circular bioeconomy offers game-changing solutions and is a crucial concept to move towards a carbon-neutral, renewable and inclusive economy that prospers in harmony with nature.
LanzaTech, a leading biotech company and carbon recycler headquartered in Illinois (USA), has successfully launched LanzaJet, Inc., a new company that will produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for a sector requiring climate friendly fuel options as it starts to recover from the impacts of COVID-19. With its approach to commercialization of SAF, LanzaJet is creating regional jobs while enabling global decarbonization of the aviation sector.
UPM Raflatac launched UPM Raflatac Forest Film PE™ to complement its range of sustainable film labeling solutions. The new PE film label takes UPM Raflatac forward in its quest for a smarter future beyond fossils, decreasing the use of fossil-based virgin raw materials in home and personal care labeling applications.
Beiersdorf and Evonik have reached an agreement on a research partnership. Its aim is to develop sustainable raw materials for care products, using carbon dioxide (CO2) as the starting material. Beiersdorf is on the lookout for new sources of raw materials that will also reduce the company’s carbon footprint. One option here is artificial photosynthesis technology. The idea: with the aid of electricity from solar energy and bacteria, valuable raw materials are produced with water and CO2, drawing on natural photosynthesis as a model. The joint research project of Evonik and Beiersdorf is being funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in the amount of around €1 million.
Neste brings Neste MY Renewable Diesel™ to a significant number of new stations during April and May 2020 in Finland. With the expansion, Neste MY Renewable Diesel will be available at around 120 stations in growth centers as well as smaller towns.
While it may not always seem like it, our world is slowly becoming more eco-conscious. People, and particularly those in younger generations, are recognizing the threats of climate change and looking for ways to contribute to a healing effort. There’s still a great deal of work to be done though, and right now, in the spring of 2020, we may be at something of a crossroads.
The Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC), Europe’s leading industry association putting circularity, innovation and sustainability at the heart of the European bioeconomy, has partnered with the European Committee of Regions (CoR) to develop a new partnering platform to connect the bio-based industries and European regions.
