Metsä Group’s innovation company Metsä Spring Ltd. and Japanese Itochu Corporation established a joint venture, which invests approximately €40 million in building and operating a test plant, with the aim to demonstrate a new technology for converting paper-grade pulp into textile fibres. Business Finland, a Finnish governmental funding agency, participates in the financing of the demo project with an R&D loan.
In 2016 the International Hockey Federation announced a partnership with SportGroup’s leading brand, Polytan, as World Cup and Olympic Partner and supplier of hockey fields for the 2018 and 2022 hockey World Cups as well as the 2020 Olympic games in Tokyo.
Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC), the Bioeconomy cluster based in Sarnia, Ontario, has made an investment in 3E Nano Inc.,through the Centre for Commercialization of Sustainable Chemistry Innovation (COMM SCI) program. In 2016, BIC established COMM SCI, which acts as a hub for the commercialization of sustainable chemistry and bio-based innovation. Bio-based start-ups and sustainable chemistry companies can participate in this program to remove barriers to commercialization and investments.
Royal DSM, a Dutch global science-based company in Nutrition, Health and Sustainable Living, intends to create a 75/25 joint venture with Nenter & Co., Inc., which will include all Nenter’s production and related assets for Vitamin E.
DuPont Industrial Biosciences officially broke ground last Thursday on its new site at the Leiden Bio Science Park in Oegstgeest, the Netherlands. The state-of-the-art, multidisciplinary facility will utilize the tools of modern biotechnology to make industrial processes more efficient and products more sustainable. The bio-based solutions created in Leiden will have a direct impact on some of the most pressing societal issues of today: reducing food waste; reducing the environmental impacts of livestock farming and improving animal health; producing renewable fuels; and lowering environmental impacts in the textile and laundry industries.
Stora Enso has chosen six startups to join its second Accelerator Programme, a joint startup initiative organised by the Scandinavian company, Aalto University Developing Entrepreneurship (Aalto ENT) and Vertical Accelerator. The Accelerator programme provides an opportunity for disruptive startups and Stora Enso to actively ideate and innovate new solutions. This year’s programme focuses specifically on the circular economy, especially in regard to circular solutions, raw material management, packaging, separation and sorting, and energy.
The Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium (SBRC), a non-profit entity established by Masdar Institute that is part of Khalifa University of Science and Technology, announced the world’s first commercial flight using locally produced sustainable fuel on an Etihad Airways Boeing 787 powered by GE’s GEnx-1B engines.
The flight from Abu Dhabi to Amsterdam marked a major milestone in the development of a clean, alternative aviation fuel to reduce carbon emissions. The initiative also addresses food security in the UAE through the farming of seafood as a core element in the process.
Nouryon (formerly AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals) will expand its offering to customers in the detergents market through a supply agreement with bio-based polymers maker Itaconix. Under terms of the agreement, Itaconix will produce and supply polymers with chelating properties that Nouryon will market to customers in household, institutional, and industrial detergent and cleaner applications. In addition, the companies will work together to transition many of Itaconix’s current detergent customers to Nouryon.
Syndial, Eni’s environmental services company, begins operating at its pilot plant at the the Gela (Sicily) refinery. The plant transforms Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW) by recycling it into bio-oil, which can then be used to produce next-generation fuels. The plant represents the first milestone in a process driven by Eni’s own research and launched with the development of the proprietary waste-to-fuel technology created by Eni’s Renewable Energy and Environmental R&D Center in Novara.
