Customer story

ExpandFibre R&D programme and ecosystem provide new bioproducts with lower carbon footprint

"Spinverse has been a valuable partner in brainstorming the operational model and strategy of such a novel ecosystem organization with us, working effectively in the timely limited schedule."

Heli Virkki, Senior Manager, Bio2X Product portfolio, Fortum.

Customer story in numbers

50

Million €

4

Yrs

2

Partners

Funding instrument

Business Finland Veturi for leading companies

ExpandFibre is an R&D collaboration and an Ecosystem launched by Fortum and Metsä Group to accelerate the development of sustainable bioproducts. It focuses on upgrading pulp fibres, hemicellulose and lignin from renewable and sustainable sources of straw and northern wood into new bioproducts. Its ambition is to meet the growing demands for sustainable textile fibres and other added value biomaterials.

Key challenges

The project aims to provide selected markets with new, high-volume bioproducts that have a significantly lower carbon footprint compared to similar (but fossil-based) products available today.

How we reached the goals

Spinverse supported in planning and preparing the winning R&D programme proposal in the Business Finland challenge for leading companies. Spinverse experts also facilitated the setting up of the ecosystem and programmes. An ecosystem requires constant work to keep it going and growing. It needs to be built and planned carefully, including defining a clear strategy and an efficient operational model. Once the ecosystem is up and running after the initial start-up phase, it is important to maintain the momentum with the ecosystem members. This means constantly planting the seeds for new joint activities and collaboration opportunities, reviewing the joint achievements against the set strategic targets, and ensuring that the value proposition to the members is delivered.

Key takeaways

The project aims to develop ground-breaking technologies and smart business concepts required to convert straw and wood pulp fibre into novel bioproducts such as textile fibres, biocomposites, packaging materials and other new fibre products.

Next

Leaf-inspired nanocellulose frameworks for next generation photosynthetic cell factories

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Kaisu Leppänen

Director, M.Sc. (Chem.)

+358 44 288 4824

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Without the knowledge transfer from the Spinverse team I'm doubtful if we would have received the funding. Spinverse was a great partner who helped us structure the process and the content in a way which gave us top scores in almost every category that the commission is evaluating.

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