BBI JU featured in Euronews Business Planet

The Euronews’s Business Planet programme aired two videos this weekend featuring the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) and its contribution to the European bioeconomy. The videos highlight the benefits of participation in BBI JU projects for SMEs.

The Vice-Chair of the BBI JU Scientific Committee Johanna Buchert stars in a three-minute-long interview with Euronews explaining why BBI JU is key for the development of the bioeconomy in the EU. In Buchert’s words, BBI JU’s goal of structuring the bio-based sector is central because ‘it is very crucial to invest in research, but it’s also very crucial that the industrial end users are within the research. This is where the BBI Joint Undertaking is the key player. The industry has been there creating the research-need agenda and then the research is answering those needs and putting all this together. I think this is the way how we boost industry in Europe.’

Johana Buchert also highlights that investing in bio-based innovations ‘has a very good impact on the world because our resources are scarce and there are boundaries in the resources so we really need to invest in research and put that into the industrial scale’. When it comes to de-risking the investment and helping to substitute fossil-based products by bio-based counterparts, Buchert emphasises that this is where BBI JU also plays a key role.

Additionally, Euronews also published a TV report about MetGen, a Finnish SME that is a beneficiary in five BBI JU projects: BIOFOREVER, BIOrescue, SWEETWOODS, UNRAVEL and WoodZymes. In this piece, MetGen’s CEO Alex Michine underlines the contribution of BBI JU to the success of the company by stating that ‘the financial support helped our company to grow from the startup phase to a fully commercial SME. But what is even more important is to have access to the wide collaboration network, including industrial players, to understand what consumers really want.’ Moreover, the laboratories of the company are shown, as well as some of the sustainable bioproducts they produce.

The two videos will be aired multiple times during the next two weeks on Euronews.
Find the interview with Johanna Buchert here.

Find the TV report on MetGen here.