Then and Now: 120 Bioeconomy Pioneers look at yesterday, today, inspirations and challenges

Thomas Klaeusli

Then:  I was developing the France Telecom “NEXT” Strategy for new mobile applications / user experiences. Something VERY different from what I am doing today. Main difference: speed to market. In IT/Telecommunications six months is a very long time. In the Bio-Economy six months is just the first small step!

Now: Today I am the CMO of AVALON Industries – the global market leader in 5-HMF prdocution/technology. Our main focus is today on developing the value chain for FDCA/PEF developments and market introduction. After main years of a lot of technical development we are now ready for Go-To-Market. The second focus is on bio-based, non-toxic adhesive systems. Here we replace formaldehyde with 5-HMF in Urea and/or Phenol based resins. We have susscessful prototypes and are now working with partners on the commercialization strategy.

Inspirations: VERY EXCITING TIMES!. There is not much that is more exciting than the advanced bioeconomy. We are change the world. It is a critical part in the circular economy and there remain so many fantastic opportunities.  It is the combination of “doing something good for the planet” with “making a good business” which makes the bioeconomy so thrilling. Of course there are still millions of challenges and the learning curve is still steep. But if it was easy other people could do it 🙂 If we do success with our business we will leave a (small) footprint in history. Maybe my grand children will one day look back and say: Cool, my dad did help the bioeconomy to succeed by being part of the sugar-based chemistry development. For them renwable products will as common as petro-based plastics are to us today.

Challenges: Time! Time! Time! Money! Money! Money and Getting the players from the value chain aligned!

The bioeconomoy needs a lot of time and is capital intensive. Something investores do not like. It is a marathon – not a 100m sprint. This is one of the main difference I note when looking back at my high-tech times. But speed is not everything 🙂

Of course bringing the various players from the value chain together is a huge challenge. Everybody is interested in the developments but they need to comit people and money and they have to do it all at the same time in order to have a clear project plan. This is indeed very challenging. Finally having an intermediate chemical like 5-HMF does not do the trick. We, and many others, are being forced to forward integrate all the way to the polymer or even the product. This is an enourmous challenge and requires even more time.