Today’s news: The Strait of Hormuz. Crude oil prices. Global warming. Rising fertilizer prices. The profitability crisis in primary production.
How would it sound if there were a new business model that reduces waste, increases resource efficiency, cuts fossil fuel emissions and dependence on fossil materials, creates new business and innovation, and improves the health of the entire ecosystem?
Doesn’t such a thing exist? Well, maybe not.
Except for the bio-circular economy!
Did you know that within a 100-kilometer radius of Kristiinankaupunki there are approximately 15,000 km² of agricultural land and 15,000 km² of sea and archipelago? With this as our starting point, we at Business Kristinestad decided to promote the utilization of by-products from primary production in our region, and thereby also the development of new business. We set out by focusing on potato production, greenhouse cultivation, forestry, and fisheries.
Manufacturing new materials from bioeconomy by-products requires both new business models and solid expertise in the properties of biomaterials and bio-based chemicals and their suitability for use in sustainable products. So we began building a functional ecosystem that would include not only primary producers but also universities and research institutes specializing in the bio-circular economy, technology suppliers, and customers for the end products. It was clear from the start that we could not achieve our goal alone, but rather needed a functional community committed to shared objectives.
And so KristinaEco Living Lab was born, Business Kristinestad’s business platform for developing the bio-circular economy.
The Living Lab is an international operating model where the latest scientific research meets business needs. It is a practical development environment where experts from various fields collaborate to test new ideas and improve existing ones. Despite its name, Living Lab is not an actual laboratory, but rather a systematic way of working together to achieve concrete goals without geographical or sectoral boundaries.
Protein sources from potato by-products, biowax from forest biomass for cosmetic products, new bioproducts from fish bones and other processing waste (e.g., for the battery industry and dental care), and biomaterials as well as raw materials for chemicals and enzymes from greenhouse by-products. All of these and many other possibilities are currently being extensively studied in international research. KristinaEco Living Lab not only brings this latest knowledge on the potential of the bio-circular economy to primary production in our region but also helps companies create new value chains for practical business operations. Business in the bio-circular economy is realized by developing industrial symbioses—that is, value chains that utilize by-products from both different companies and different business sectors to manufacture new bioproducts.
The latest application of sector integration may also be found in the utilization of biogenic gases in Power-to-X projects that use green hydrogen as a feedstock, which are also new types of industrial symbioses. The growth in biogas production benefits not only the production of e-methane and e-methanol due to the carbon dioxide gas generated as a by-product, but it also promotes the utilization of the resulting digestate in, for example, the production of new bio-based fertilizer products.
We look forward to participating, together with the University of Vaasa’s University of Applied Sciences (VAMK) and Åbo Akademi University’s University of Applied Sciences (Novia), in the EU-funded BIO2REG Network as the only Finnish region. We are sharing best practices with bioeconomy regions in Belgium and France, among others, and further developing our Living Lab model to bring new business opportunities to primary production entrepreneurs in the Ostrobothnia region.
We are also extremely grateful to the Regional Council of Ostrobothnia and the EU’s Structural and Just Transition Funds for the financial support we have received to promote the bio-circular economy. Our latest project, which has also received support from the EU Just Transition Fund, is called SmartBioLog, and as its name suggests, it focuses on identifying bottlenecks in bio-circular economy logistics in our region. Biomass suitable for utilization is usually scattered in small quantities, making smart logistics planning one of the most significant factors in designing the cost-effectiveness of bio-circular economy operations. Our goal is, among other things, to develop route and intermediate storage plans using, for example, geographic information systems (GIS). Here, too, we apply the KristinaEco Living Lab model by working closely with logistics companies in our region and acquiring new logistics data from research conducted by universities and research institutes.
We will therefore continue to focus on developing new business opportunities in our region based on the research data we obtain through the Living Lab. In our collaboration with the Hanken School of Economics, we have already identified several new concrete startup opportunities in the bio-circular economy, and furthermore, KristinaEco’s activities have enabled the emergence of a new, AI-based digital platform company in Kristiinankaupunki.
We therefore aim to bring more of this kind of news to counterbalance the Strait of Hormuz, crude oil price trends, and global warming. We want to be involved not only in developing new, sustainable business but also in activities that ensure the Earth remains habitable for future generations.
And yes, that is precisely why our solution is the bio-circular economy.
Author: Pertti Miettunen, Project Manager, KristinaEco