Abstract
It was 1992 when Italy’s Novamont celebrated the use of its Mater-Bi starch-based polymer to make the official pen of the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Twenty years later, Novamont has been joined by a clutch of other Italian chemical and biotech firms investing in the biomaterials sector. The companies are risking hundreds of millions of dollars to develop new technologies and build industrial biotech plants at a scale not seen before around the world. “It’s a new era for industrial biotech” in Italy, says Antonio Irione, head of life sciences business in that country for the consulting firm Ernst & Young. The main catalyst for the flurry of building activity is growing consumer demand for greener products, Irione explains. An additional stimulant, he says, is the advent of economically viable technologies for producing chemicals from biomass. Among the industrial biotech plants that companies are planning or ...
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