Contribution to solutions – Chemical challenges

It has been almost 45 years since the noted biologist, author and mother of the modern environmental movement, Rachel Carson wrote the book Silent Spring. Yet studies still find banned chemicals and pesticides like DDT in mother’s breast milk.

This fact, along with the peak-oil pheneomenon, the availability of oil to derive petrochemicals used in the synthesis of the building blocks for plastics, speciality chemicals and other materials will be severely limited in 2050 – implies that the society will need to find other alternatives to enable the chemistry sector to progress/evolve to deliver sustainable solutions.

We feel that our demonstrated leadership in synthetic biology and metabolic pathway engineering will poise us to lead the development of microbes and processes for manufacturing biochemicals and other molecules which will replace their petrochemical counterparts.

And we feel confident that there is a difference, an environmental benefit. A study by Herman in 2007 estimated that biotechnology derived chemicals replaced petrochemically-based chemicals, the greenhouse gas emission reductions could reach 500

million tonnes CO2 equivalents, based on 1999/2000 production levels. If cellulosic materials were used as a feedstock, for instance, the entire chemical industry could remove 820 million tonnes CO2 equivalents from the atmosphere.

Read more about how our solutions to chemical challenges in the report: Converting biomass to renewable biochemicals.