BIOCHEM - Eco-IP Partnership for Driving Innovation in the Sector of Bio-based Products
The BIOCHEM project, which started on 1 February 2010, aims to support companies, and especially SMEs, to enter the emerging and highly promising market for bio-based products in the chemical sector.
Bio-based products are made from renewable, biological raw materials such as plants and trees. They are typically sold on into market sectors such as bio-plastics, bio-lubricants, surfactants, enzymes and pharmaceuticals. Bio-based products also constitute one of Europe’s six ‘Lead Markets.’
There are many strong drivers for governments and companies to adopt renewable feedstocks and use industrial biotechnology to produce chemicals and materials. The most obvious are climate change and energy security, in particular the global target of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050. Increasingly companies are also seeing commercial or economic advantages from developing products which are sustainable or “green”.
However, innovation in bio-based products is inhibited by a number of factors including:
- Lack of awareness of industrial biotechnology and its benefits;
- Uncertainty about market demand;
- Lack of confidence to enter a new business involving new supply chains;
- Need for a significant technology investment;
- Limited access to specialist demonstration facilities.
BIOCHEM will develop tools, processes and information to support companies in addressing and overcoming these barriers in order to develop successful businesses in bio-based products.
Specific objectives:
- Stimulate demand driven bio-based business in the chemical sector;
- Improve the innovation capacity of bio-based chemistry start-ups and SMEs;
- Complete a comprehensive assessment of the bio-based products market;
- Develop a new integrated toolbox for providing support to companies;
- Use the toolbox to promote new SME-driven bio-based product ideas.
