Realise-Bio network at the Brightlands Chemelot Campus

Last week we brought together the Dutch and German bioeconomy ecosystem at the Brightlands Chemelot Campus for our third and final Realise-Bio annual conference. With more than 60 registered participants, the experts from our project consortium and a lot of our model project partners, we received input, discussed the future of bioeconomy, made new contacts and deepened existing ones.

Yvonne van der Meer from the Aachen Maastricht Institute of Biobased Materials (AMIBM) introduced us to this innovative and growing cross-border institute and showed us, how different disciplines and perspectives work together to inspire one another and develop something greater than the sum of its parts.

Prof. Annie Levasseur, Prof. Andrew Henderson, and Dr. Michael Saidani from Quebec University took the audience along in a joint keynote and  gave insights into their research on dynamic LCA, ecotoxicity, and circularity assessment of biobased products.

After a long networking break with exhibitions by our model projects, four model projects were invited to present their results to the audience in short presentations.

Berhard Aumann (tgo AG) and Roy Lenders (InnerBuddies) talked about their plan to proceed with the project InnerSoils, Rik Voerman (Triple Benefit) gave us insights into the challenges and solutions from his project Biobased Banana Bags, Pim Vrehen and Rick Pijnenburg (Compas Agro) showed their different results in replacing peat in different plant substrates, and Chris Baumhöer & Jonas Finkeldei (Eudemia formerly CoFurniture) and John Smits (SAM Panels) showed us how far they had come in their project for biobased and compostable furniture systems.

After this retrospective of the results of our project, Patrick Lemmens (LLTB), Thomas Waaden (GEMIT Institute of the University of Applied Science Niederrhein), and John Smits (SAM Panels) were on stage for a short interview and discussion on how the bioeconomy in our region can grow further, which role primary producers and logistics play, and how important not only the market, but also the right network and community is.

Last but not least we joined for a short tour to the multipurpose pilot plant and left the Brightlands Campus with a lot of new input and contacts. Thank you to everyone contributing to this event!