BIOSWITCH – supporting brand owners to switch to bio-based approaches
BIOSWITCH, a new European project that seeks to reach brand owners and support and encourage them to turn their products into bio-based goods, kicked off with an online meeting on 9th and 10th of June, 2020. The international 2 year project is coordinated by CLIC Innovation by CLIC’s project development and management-services. CLIC is a non-profit company and an innovation ecosystem orchestrator with the mission to facilitate creation of breakthrough solutions in bioeconomy.
With a turnover value of €2.3 trillion and accounting for 8.2% of the European Union’s workforce, the bioeconomy is a central element to the success of the economy overall, and brand owners delivering bio-based products are one of the main drivers to boost it. Their decision to become bio-based is one of the starting points for an efficient implementation of the bioeconomy, as they have the power to stimulate bio-based value chains and the market acceleration of bio-products. However, brand owners are often reluctant to invest in taking a bio-based approach due to perceived risks and uncertainties, and to a lack of adequate support from the innovation ecosystems.
BIOSWITCH aims to encourage and support the brand owners to switch to bio-based approaches by hosting a set of communication actions and events that will allow shaping solutions to mitigate brand owners’ perceived risks. Furthermore, the project will develop a toolbox that will allow to assess the brands’ bio-based maturity level and assist their owners in the transition journey.
“We are very glad to coordinate such an ambitious project that aims to go beyond just raising awareness”, said the Project Coordinator Anna Tenhunen. “By developing the BIOSWITCH Toolbox based on the investigated framework on brand owner needs, motivations and incentives, we aim to encourage companies to switch to bio-based in a novel way”.
“BIOSWITCH is a project highly needed and wanted by Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) since years ago”, said Ana Ruiz, Project Officer at the BBI JU. “It will play a crucial role to assist brand owners and improve the market penetration of many of the bio-based products that are emerging during the last years. In addition, BIOSWITCH is a very relevant initiative to support the society and the economy in its green transition from fossil-based to bio-based.”
The project will focus on four value chains: agriculture, chemistry, forestry, and food, and four regions will serve as model demonstrators: Andalusia (Spain), Denmark, Finland, and Flanders (Belgium). BIOSWITCH aims to reach 180 brand owners, to increase the marketability of bio-based products by 8% and, ultimately, to support bringing Europe to the forefront of the bio-based economy, strengthening the competitiveness of the industry.
For successful execution and results in BIOSWITCH, in addition to the coordination duties, CLIC has a crucial role as an ecosystem partner in the field of bioeconomy. The project results and especially the development and deployment of the BIOSWITCH toolbox is expected to bring added value to the innovation cluster and stakeholders. Together with the partners’ and CLIC’s networks, we expect to reach over 180 brand owners and involve 400 organizations and stakeholders. We are actively looking for partners among brand owners to join the development phase in different roles.
About BIOSWITCH
BIOSWITCH is an initiative funded by the BBI JU under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme with a total budget of €1 million.
The project is coordinated by the Finnish entity CLIC Innovation and formed by a multi-disciplinary consortium of eight partners from six different countries. The partners’ profiles include four industrial clusters: Clic Innovation, Corporación Tecnológica de Andalucía, Flanders’ FOOD and Food & Bio Cluster Denmark; two Research and Technological Organizations: Institute of Technology Tralee and VTT; and two SMEs: Biomass Technology Group and Sustainable Innovations.
For more information, please contact:
Anna Tenhunen, anna.tenhunen@clicinnovation.fi
Teija Laitinen, teija.laitinen@clicinnovaton.fi
This project has received funding from the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking (JU) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 887727.
