BIO-TIC Workshops: Building blocks, Biofuels and Bioplastics

Three Bio-Business workshops are being organised by SusChem’s FP7 BIO-TIC project during Q4 2014. The workshops will help shape BIO-TIC’s strategic agenda to boost the uptake of industrial biotechnology (IB) in Europe. The workshops cover three major IB product segments that promise significant potential for Europe’s industry and society: Chemical Building Blocks, Biofuels and Bioplastics.

Building blocks
The first workshop takes place on 1 October in Reims, France as part of the major IB event: the European Forum for Industrial Biotechnology and the Biobased Economy (EFIB 2014). Its title is: "Chemical Building Blocks – What do we need to do to build sustainable foundations for the bio-based chemical industry in Europe?”

“The objective of this workshop is to collect input from stakeholders interested in chemical building blocks, discuss the main hurdles that impact the use of IB in this market segment and develop concrete actions to mitigate these hurdles,” says Pierre Barthélemy, Innovation Manager at Cefic. “The information collected during this and the other workshops will be included in the final version of the BIO-TIC roadmap that will be published in mid-2015.”

Biofuels
The second workshop is organised in London on 23 October and covers "Advanced Biofuels – Fuelling the Industry in Europe." Although at present the production of advanced biofuels world-wide is still quite low, various policy drivers both in the EU and elsewhere provide a significant incentive for their future development. However, many hurdles exist to the full exploitation of advanced biofuels production in the EU.

The outputs of this workshop will be used in the development of a roadmap to identify research and innovation funding priorities within the EU and will help shape the EU research and innovation agenda to 2030.

You can download a flyer for this workshop here.

Bioplastics
Finally a workshop entitled "Bio-based Plastics – How do we grow the EU Industry?” will be held on 1 December in Brussels. Today, bio-based plastics have an established market, demonstrating rapid growth both in Europe and globally. While Europe is currently the largest producer and user of bio-based plastics, this situation is expected to change in the future with production increasingly being based in countries where feedstocks are cheaper and where production costs are lower. Even with increasing fossil fuel prices expected to make bio-based plastics more competitive compared to fossil-derived plastics, ensuring the cost-competitiveness of EU bio-based plastics production compared to other regions globally is expected to become an increasingly difficult challenge.

“Stakeholders interested in bioplastics will have the opportunity to discuss the main hurdles that impact the use of industrial biotechnology in the bioplastics market segment and propose concrete actions to overcome these hurdles,” explains Pierre Barthélemy.

Registration for all the workshops is now open and can be accessed via a dedicated website.

Objectives
With these workshops and two previous events, the BIO-TIC project consortium aims to bring together industrial biotechnology end users (downstream) with technology providers (upstream), innovation agencies and decision makers to stimulate interconnected discussion and knowledge exchange platforms and processes.

The objectives of all the workshops are to:

• identify technological, non-technological and market hurdles for the uptake of industrial biotechnology in these sectors, 
• develop recommendations and solutions to overcome the identified hurdles, 
• contribute to the development, testing and fine-tuning of the BIO-TIC roadmaps,
• bring together industrial biotechnology end users (downstream) with technology providers (upstream), innovation agencies and decision makers to stimulate interconnected discussion and knowledge exchange platforms and processes,
• collect data to develop draft indicators to measure the socio-economic and environmental impact of IB and the use of renewables-based products in the European Union.

More information
Input from the market and experts in industry and research are critical to build a basis for the BIO-TIC roadmaps and to ensure that actions are developed which best fit the needs of this sector. SusChem, Cefic, EuropaBio and all the BIO-TIC partners welcome any comments on the current draft documents. You can submit comments via email.  

For more information on the BIO-TIC project and the business-case workshops visit the project website or contact Pierre Barthélemy, Innovation Manager at Cefic.