Currently experiencing strong growth in France and around the world, the use of industrial biotechnologies and the use of biosourced raw materials meet many environmental challenges: decarbonization of industry and transport, storage of atmospheric carbon (for example in materials intended for construction), environmental protection (in particular the biodegradability of disposable products such as sunscreens), human health thanks to the improvement of processes or the risk profile of products, circular economy or even redesign of inputs to take the turn of agroecology.
Sustainable biobased products can also contribute to reducing our industry's dependence on fossil resources and be a major growth driver for competitiveness and employment. Thus, on December 10, 2021, the Government presented the national strategy “Bio-based products and industrial biotechnologies – Sustainable fuels”, in order to accelerate the development of French industrial biotechnologies and the manufacture of bio-based products.
Endowed with 420 million euros in public support from the Investments for the Future Program (PIA), the strategy aims to promote the development of industrial biotechnology in France and the manufacture of bio-based products, in particular replacing oil-based products. This includes fuels from sustainable resources: biofuels (from agricultural, forest or algal biomass), and synthetic fuels produced from carbon-free energy.
More specifically, the "Biosourced products and industrial biotechnologies" call for projects aims to support innovative projects, which accelerate the marketing of technologies and/or ambitious and sustainable solutions, from the industrial research phases to the scale 1 demonstration of the interest of a solution in its operational environment. It also aims to support the industrialization of innovations in the field of biosourced products and products derived from industrial biotechnologies.
Projects should primarily enable:
- The expansion of biomass deposits, in compliance with sustainability criteria, with the aim of providing ready-to-use biomass or molecules from primary processing;
- Demonstration of biomass transformation processes, or products from primary transformation;
- Support for industrialization, consisting of supporting the implementation on an industrial scale of production units of biosourced molecules and their transformation into molecules of interest or innovative materials with higher added value.
The AAP will support the best investment projects by supporting ambitious initiatives on French territory, carried out by emerging players capable of becoming world-class competitors or by established players of excellence. The selection of projects from emerging players will be prioritized within the framework of this call for projects.
The call for projects is open until January 15, 2024, with a first succession on May 31, 2022.