The new members are: A4F – Algae for Future (Portugal), Acies Bio (Slovenia), AEP Polymers (Italy), Alginor (Norway), Arbiom (France) , Biosynthia (Denmark), Braskem (Brazil), Capax Biobased Development (Belgium), Cellicon (The Netherlands), Citrique Belge (Belgium), CMP – Commercial Mushrooms Producers Ltd (Ireland), CRCF – Centro Ricerche per La Chimica Fine (Italy), Enginzyme AB (Sweden), Fermentalg (Spain), Fortum (Finland), Graanul Invest (Estonia), Haldor Topsøe (Denmark), Nova Pangaea Technologies (United States), Planet Bioplastics (Italy), Process Design Center (The Netherlands) and Procter & Gamble (United States).
Among these members are large multinationals as well as SMEs and clusters. They cover the entire geographical spectrum of the European continent, from Ireland to Estonia, from Portugal to Finland, to the United States and Brazil.
‘The influx of new members shows the central role of the BBI JU in creating cross-sectoral partnerships and utilizing and stimulating investments in the circular bioeconomy’, says Dirk Carrez, executive director of BIC. ‘New members will bring an added dimension to our role in setting up new and innovative value chains, promoting new investments and stimulating jobs and growth in the bio-economy. ‘
Interest from outside Europe
The new members of BIC are also showing a growing interest from non-EU industries, in accessing finance for investments in the European bioeconomy. Moreover, among the new members there is a growing number of representatives from the fast-growing primary production sectors, such as aquaculture, fisheries and agriculture, food and feed.
BIC’s growing membership base offers new opportunities to create sustainable synergies between sectors and to lay the foundations for new biobased value chains, of which more than 100 are expected to be created by 2020.
In addition, the growing membership of BIC also shows the impact of the BBI JU and its importance for making investment decisions for the industry, in the European bioeconomy. The numbers speak for themselves; the latest investment figures confirm that BIC members have more than doubled their investment plans in the bio-economy, from € 2.1 billion in 2014 to € 5.5 billion in 2018.
