Is 'Bioplastics' a really bad term? - with Alex Thielen from the Bioplastics Magazine

Alex Thielen is a psychologist by training who ventured into creative writing. He has a passion for conveying information in nice stories - which is highly needed in a technical sector, such as plastics, and also became the reason why he joined Bioplastics Magazine in the first place.

The magazine started as a family business and was founded by Alex's father, who is a chemical engineer. After 18 years in operation, the magazine has established and publishes six issues per year. Each issue features two focus points that highlight inspiring stories from the bio-based plastic value chain, researchers, and start-ups.

Despite its name, Bioplastics Magazine does not solely focus on promoting bioplastics. The magazine recognizes that other technologies that support circularity are equally important, as long as they are backed by scientific evidence. In this podcast episode, we discussed opinions and perspectives on bioplastics. Whether it is bad, what the term actually implies, and why it could be confusing sometimes. We also talked how the challenges faced when delivering information, including the factors which affect them (such as location and system), and importantly, we also learned what bioplastics are.
PS: They even published a bioplastics basics book in 6 languages, which you can find HERE

Find out more about Bioplastics Magazine at www.bioplasticsmagazine.com/en/ and feel free to contact Alex via LinkedIn.

Democratizing Renewable Materials - with Charles Dimmler from Checkerspot

In this podcast episode, we’ve had the pleasure to speak to Charles Dimmler, who is the Co-founder and CEO of Checkerspot. Having a passion for both history and biological sciences, Charles believes that economy and business can drive impactful societal change. After working as a junior investment banker and holding management positions in biotech companies, he decided to build Checkerspot, a biotech company with a sustainable mission.

Checkerspot develops renewable material technologies from bio-based sources - mainly algae. They use the power of biology to design production processes for renewable materials that replace petroleum-based chemicals, such as polyurethanes. Moreover, they empower product designers with knowledge and access to not only more sustainable material solutions but also performance features that expand their possibilities beyond commodity materials. They are committed to scale their technologies through practical applications just like, for example, developing bio-based materials that can improve the performance of skis! 

We also delved into the topic of scalability and asked whether how innovative bio-based materials can fulfil the demand for their traditional petroleum-based counterparts. Once more, it became clear that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and it's essential to explore synergies between innovations and synergies to existing technologies

Find out more about CheckerSpot at https://checkerspot.com/ and feel free to contact Charles via LinkedIn.

How Data Models Advance the Uptake of Sustainable Material Alternatives - with Roy Brooks from CirQulor

Roy Brooks’ journey into the sustainable materials space is a very unconventional one. He started his career in the media and advertisement industry before shifting to the IT sector and finally developing a passion for sustainable material alternatives as a solution to minimize our challenges with plastics. This passion led Roy to provide a data model that helps the industry to qualify such alternative material solutions and accelerate their uptake by the industry. That’s how CirQulor was born - a resource hub for planet-friendly alternatives.

CirQulor aims to provide insights and published data on the whole supply chain, including economic, environmental and societal aspects specifically for sustainable and bio-based material alternatives. We spoke with Roy about how having reliable data and a science-based taxonomy helps to tackle greenwashing and gain trust, scale commercialization and production, raise awareness, and even in getting investments. CirQulor believes that with data, it will be possible to escalate the growth of sustainable alternative materials.

In this podcast episode, Roy also took us on his journey of developing CirQulor, together with its co-founder, and explained the importance of data, and the story behind their purposeful start-up. Check out this controversial and inspiring discussion, which shows the importance of science-based dispute and alignment.

Find out more about CirQulor at https://cirqulor.com/ and feel free to contact Roy via LinkedIn.

Leveraging Bioeconomy in the Global Sustainability Agenda - with Paul MacDonald from World Bio Markets

Paul MacDonald is one of the founders of World Bio Markets, a leading international event that connects the bioeconomy community and drives the commercialization of sustainable bio-based material solutions. Paul entered this sector as a B2B event expert when running some of the world’s largest food exhibitions - with lots of players from the packaging sector.

With World Bio Markets (WBM), Paul’s goal is to address the need for a fast scaling of bioeconomy solutions and bring brand owners, investors and solution providers together. To achieve a larger impact with the focus on commercialization, WBM matches the right stakeholders by organizing one-to-one meetings to encourage commercialization and grow the bio-based sector. This also leads to the intention of World Bio Markets in serving the entire value chain of stakeholders within the bioeconomy sector.

In this podcast, we also discussed the importance of a trustful scientific dialogue and a stronger communication of science based facts to the business world. As a community enabler, Paul told us more about the strategy behind “Storytelling for Scientists” - and, importantly, about the amazing program of the upcoming event in May this year (2023) in The Hague, in the Netherlands. Definitely worth checking it out and registering here: https://www.worldbiomarkets.com/

Find out more about World Bio Markets at https://www.worldbiomarkets.com/ and keep updated with the latest news about bioeconomy here https://worldbiomarketinsights.com/. Feel free to contact Paul via LinkedIn.