SusChem at PBS 2015

From 8 to 10 April SusChem was active at the third Plant Based Summit (PBS) that took place in Lille, France. This year’s PBS focused on the innovation, co-development and operational implementation necessary for the widespread deployment in the market of biobased products. And SusChem led a session emphasising plant-based chemistry as a contribution to sustainable chemistry.

The SusChem session on the first morning of PBS 2015 (8 April) provided a vision of how biobased chemistry is part of the wider world of sustainable chemistry with a focus on the SusChem vision. SusChem is working to reinforce the links between the mainstream chemistry and the biobased sector.

The session from 11:15 to 12:45 was entitled ‘Plant-based chemistry as a contribution to Sustainable Chemistry’ and was chaired by Ward Mosmuller of DSM. Pierre Barthelemy (pictured below), Executive Director Research and Innovation at Cefic, opened the presentations with a talk entitled ‘Bio-based resources, an opportunity for Sustainable Chemistry’.

He was followed by Andreas Kicherer of BASF talking about ‘Mass balance- an innovative approach for the use of biomass in chemical industry’, Ylwa Alwarsdotter of SEKAB Biofuels & Chemicals presented on ‘Locally Grown Plastics, utilisation of cellulosic feed stock’, and the final presentation of the session was by Thibaud Caulier of Solvay who talked about ‘Epicerol® a new path for Sustainable Chemistry’.

Tradeshow
SusChem was also prominent in the trade exhibition sharing its booth with SusChem inspired projects CRM_InnoNet (see separate blog article), Bio-tic, Recreate and R4R.

The new SusChem SIRA was very much appreciated by visitors to the booth allowing platform representatives to explain clearly what SusChem can offer to stakeholders at PBS 2015 and inviting them to follow the platform's bioeconomy and other related activities. The SPIRE roadmap was also distributed to visitors.

The PBS is organised by the Association Chimie du Vegetal (ACDV) that represents the French plant-based chemistry sector working in partnership with publishing group Infopro Digital. The Plant Based Summit organisers’ strong position in the industrial landscape is key to allow the whole plant-based chemistry value chain to be gathered again in Lille including actors from the agro-industrials, chemical intermediates, chemists and end-users.