Biotech­nol­ogy can make in­dus­trial processes more sus­tain­able - if you let it

Bioso­lu­tions have the po­ten­tial to play a sig­nif­i­cant role in ad­dress­ing the major chal­lenges of our time, such as sus­tain­able food pro­duc­tion, en­vi­ron­men­tally friendly tex­tiles, or the preser­va­tion of bio­di­ver­sity.

Di­verse ap­pli­ca­tions of biotech­nol­ogy

Hu­mans have been using biotech­nol­ogy to pro­duce every­day prod­ucts since the ear­li­est times: For ex­am­ple, yeast bac­te­ria are used in the pro­duc­tion of bread, beer, and wine, and liv­ing lac­tic acid bac­te­ria are needed to make cheese. Liv­ing mi­croor­gan­isms are also in­creas­ingly used in in­dus­try for the man­u­fac­ture of prod­ucts. They can often carry out sub­stance trans­for­ma­tions at room tem­per­a­ture more ef­fi­ciently and in a more en­vi­ron­men­tally friendly way than con­ven­tional processes. The field of ap­pli­ca­tion is al­most in­ex­haustible. Today, they are al­ready used to pro­duce en­vi­ron­men­tally friendly de­ter­gents or fra­grances. But there is also great po­ten­tial in the tex­tile and en­ergy sec­tors. In 2022, for ex­am­ple, the Swiss com­pany Clari­ant started the first com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion of cel­lu­lose ethanol from straw in its new biore­fin­ery in Po­dari, Ro­ma­nia. With the help of cus­tomised en­zymes, around 50,000 tonnes of ethanol will be pro­duced from 250,000 tonnes of agri­cul­tural residues from the re­gion.

Un­sat­is­fac­tory legal frame­work

How­ever, Eu­rope does not cur­rently have an ad­e­quate reg­u­la­tory frame­work that would allow biotech­no­log­i­cal processes to be used quickly and ef­fi­ciently in in­dus­try. The legal frame­works that cur­rently reg­u­late biotech­no­log­i­cal processes have one thing in com­mon: they are not geared to­wards bioso­lu­tions. For ex­am­ple, in­dus­trial bioso­lu­tions and the bi­o­log­i­cal pro­duc­tion of fuels are sub­ject to reg­u­la­tions aimed at reg­u­lat­ing fos­sil sub­stances. These in­ad­e­quate reg­u­la­tory frame­works in­hibit re­source ef­fi­cient bioso­lu­tions and the po­ten­tial to ad­vance the global agenda for sus­tain­abil­ity

In­ter­na­tional coali­tion for bet­ter frame­work con­di­tions

A coali­tion of na­tional and sec­tor-spe­cific busi­ness and in­dus­try as­so­ci­a­tions now want to change this. They have founded the "Eu­ro­pean Bioso­lu­tions Coali­tion". In ad­di­tion to economiesu­isse, the found­ing mem­bers are the na­tional trade as­so­ci­a­tions of Den­mark, Aus­tria, and the Nether­lands as well as the Ital­ian in­dus­try as­so­ci­a­tion As­so­biotec. The aim of the coali­tion is to im­prove the legal frame­work for the use of biotech­no­log­i­cal processes in in­dus­try. Even though the work will ini­tially con­cen­trate on the EU's reg­u­la­tory frame­work, it is of great im­por­tance to economiesu­isse that cor­re­spond­ing re­forms also take place in Eu­ro­pean coun­tries out­side the EU - such as Switzer­land. Only in this way is cross-bor­der co­op­er­a­tion in the biotech sec­tor pos­si­ble. The aim is to cre­ate the nec­es­sary con­di­tions for strength­en­ing sus­tain­able in­dus­trial pro­duc­tion all over Eu­rope. This in­cludes coun­tries such as Switzer­land and the United King­dom. Only in this way will Eu­rope have a chance to keep up with the global com­pe­ti­tion for ef­fi­cient in­dus­trial ap­pli­ca­tions of bioso­lu­tions.

​ Press re­lease Eu­ro­pean Bioso­lu­tions Coali­tion

​ 10 so­lu­tions for the in­dus­trial biorev­o­lu­tion