Collaborating to drive the future of sustainable biotechnology
Collaboration is central to our culture, enabling us to support the biotechnology industry to deliver sustainable solutions for a cleaner, greener future.
![Yvonne Armitage Yvonne Armitage](https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/Yvonne-Armitage.png?w=380&h=380&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1668512768&s=f28afa3a6e43e32afebe5474fa599354)
Principal Strategic Programme Manager
(she/her)
Sustainability is imperative in meeting humanity’s growing demand for food, fuel, and materials, without detrimentally impacting the environment.
Emboldened by recent advances in the industrial biotechnology sector, innovators and industry leaders are increasingly turning to bioscience to meet this need.
Now more than ever, biotechnology is healing people with new pharmaceuticals, fuelling nations with energy, and feeding the world with novel foods and animal feed. Biotechnology supports circular supply chains and sustainable innovations by enabling more efficient resource utilisation, minimising waste, and offering bio-based alternatives to new and existing chemicals and materials.
Although industrial biotechnology is largely inherently sustainable as there are many net-zero oriented elements built in – due to the use of bio-based raw materials, low temperatures and ambient pressures – it can still do better.
![Two of our people in a lab at CPI's Wilton Centre wearing lab coats and googles inspecting a piece of equipment. Two of our people in a lab at CPI's Wilton Centre wearing lab coats and googles inspecting a piece of equipment.](https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201027CPI-Selected-Images_0100-1.jpg?w=1920&h=1080&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513671&s=8bef54385d2a41331bf29cae980e0d6e 1920w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201027CPI-Selected-Images_0100-1.jpg?w=1120&h=630&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513671&s=8c83e85734ccf3408ecccc9db51db47f 1120w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201027CPI-Selected-Images_0100-1.jpg?w=2240&h=1260&q=45&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513671&s=4cebf217a4d31bc23cad85f2d9a17dbe 2240w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201027CPI-Selected-Images_0100-1.jpg?w=800&h=450&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513671&s=5062ef0418798833c1572dd3b1a69329 800w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201027CPI-Selected-Images_0100-1.jpg?w=1600&h=900&q=45&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513671&s=4b71e22785528f41adfea0761e528071 1600w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201027CPI-Selected-Images_0100-1.jpg?w=480&h=270&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513671&s=7a4fca25af2d9d16f4ec337fd415672f 480w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201027CPI-Selected-Images_0100-1.jpg?w=960&h=540&q=45&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513671&s=36e8ca9b637e23db1f3d380bd5a1e985 960w)
Driving a more sustainable biotechnology industry
At CPI, we’re leading the charge toward a more sustainable biotechnology industry by ensuring we deliver projects with cost-effective, productive, and environmentally friendly processes and operations.
Biotechnology processes currently use large amounts of water and power to run fermentations. However, we can reduce this environmental impact by recycling water from downstream processes, where possible, and ensuring that we choose the most appropriate equipment to minimise energy usage. To achieve this, we’re aiming to invest in new, more efficient equipment – like air compressors, chillers, and steam generators – that require fewer fossil fuels to power.
When designing new processes and plants, we can check that raw materials come from sustainable sources, make use of waste feedstocks, and shorten process times or implement continuous processing for improved outputs.
Promoting the sustainable development of emerging technologies
Companies now recognise that they can’t do everything alone. So, they seek out technology innovators like CPI because we have a broad range of expertise from different backgrounds to offer input at different stages of the innovation journey.
We’re not only helping companies harness biotechnology to ensure that innovative ideas are developed and scaled effectively, but also sustainably, by identifying opportunities to make processes more resource efficient. Our expertise in biotechnology stretches from product design to process modelling through to commercialisation, and we ensure that processes are well characterised and developed before they’re scaled, for greater efficiency and sustainability.
![Two of our people in the plant at our Wilton Centre wearing white hard hats talking amongst fermentation machinery. Two of our people in the plant at our Wilton Centre wearing white hard hats talking amongst fermentation machinery.](https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201028CPI-Selected-Images_0074.jpg?w=1920&h=1080&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513661&s=83e2c1761e6e277da4505e35c82b8068 1920w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201028CPI-Selected-Images_0074.jpg?w=1120&h=630&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513661&s=032dfa5afca23a2fcb408e7fd6c67810 1120w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201028CPI-Selected-Images_0074.jpg?w=2240&h=1260&q=45&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513661&s=85de4a0064686519bcd1686e0b4bd849 2240w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201028CPI-Selected-Images_0074.jpg?w=800&h=450&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513661&s=182c58150ce1f434d72182fe3967b443 800w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201028CPI-Selected-Images_0074.jpg?w=1600&h=900&q=45&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513661&s=0d23e3e955460578cbc8ecb8f71c5132 1600w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201028CPI-Selected-Images_0074.jpg?w=480&h=270&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513661&s=8781ba41ba5a808eca2deff92a8efe6d 480w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201028CPI-Selected-Images_0074.jpg?w=960&h=540&q=45&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513661&s=c70bc5b69563575d0d421b69fa1420d9 960w)
Shaping the future of sustainable AgriFoodTech
We have a long history of supporting innovation to deliver sustainability benefits for people, places, and our planet. We’re keenly aware of the threat posed by climate change and the environmental impact of our food production system. Addressing such systemic challenges is therefore a key driving force of our work. This is why we’ve partnered with Azotic technologies to help deliver a natural nitrogen fixation technology that provides a solution to the overuse of synthetic fertiliser.
Technologies like biologicals for nitrogen fixation extend the sustainability built into product development by using natural materials for natural processes. Ultimately, this benefits farmers and is a good sustainable practice helping to reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture.
We’re also helping build a sustainable future by enabling the innovative use of carbon dioxide to produce food and animal feed in the form of alternative proteins that can be tailored to the specific needs of different livestock. This has the potential to ensure animals are healthier and reduce emissions from livestock production.
Shaping the future of sustainable materials
Plastic pollution is one of the biggest challenges in the modern era, impacting our health and harming the environment. The US plastics industry is responsible for 232 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions every year, while up to 12 million tonnes of plastic ends up in our oceans annually, threatening sea wildlife and biodiversity. To help address this problem, we collaborated with Oceanium to develop compostable bio-packaging from sustainably farmed seaweed. This will help advance circular life cycle packaging while reducing our reliance on fossil-derived plastics.
We also helped Fiberight, a South Wales-based resource recovery company, to optimise and upscale their proprietary process for generating sustainable added value products from municipal solid waste (MSW). What’s more, the output from this innovative water-based recycling process can be used to generate green energy. With the potential to recover, recycle and repurpose up to 70% of all MSW in the UK, this novel method will further drive a circular bioeconomy, placing the UK at the leading edge of sustainable development.
![Three of our people in one of our labs at CPI's Wilton Centre wearing white lab coats and goggles standing around a computer at a lab bench and talking. Three of our people in one of our labs at CPI's Wilton Centre wearing white lab coats and goggles standing around a computer at a lab bench and talking.](https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201029CPI-Selected-Images_0080.jpg?w=1920&h=1080&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513653&s=0ccb7431441336d6705793d4d3e26795 1920w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201029CPI-Selected-Images_0080.jpg?w=1120&h=630&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513653&s=be979e5dfb706a3e367b1a3ce2a2b685 1120w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201029CPI-Selected-Images_0080.jpg?w=2240&h=1260&q=45&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513653&s=aaba5975479576f339caa8ce7976610f 2240w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201029CPI-Selected-Images_0080.jpg?w=800&h=450&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513653&s=ac35d732358937b28eaa90792a11aa04 800w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201029CPI-Selected-Images_0080.jpg?w=1600&h=900&q=45&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513653&s=51bee84c954d4af31e9021bbb5bf8e01 1600w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201029CPI-Selected-Images_0080.jpg?w=480&h=270&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513653&s=d925500923e6ec4767691860a1ddc3c6 480w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/smart-hoopoe/production/content/images/201029CPI-Selected-Images_0080.jpg?w=960&h=540&q=45&fm=jpg&fit=crop&dm=1668513653&s=935b20eb9e3fc9cc8a89611571520fba 960w)
Collaboration is key
We don’t just collaborate with industry and founders. Our partners also include academia, innovation enablers, investors, and government and policymakers. By working together with key players across the innovation ecosystem, we can build a better collective future.
Following our recent Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Manchester, we will further catalyse the scale-up and commercialisation of deep tech and sustainable manufacturing solutions across a broad range of industries including biotechnology, pharma, energy and advanced materials.
Collaboration is essential in the innovation ecosystem because no one has all the resources and expertise. We build collaborations to help meet technology and innovation needs for more effective and rapid sustainable scale-up and commercialisation. By combining our entrepreneurial mindset and radical thinking as we work with our partners globally, we catalyse the adoption of advanced technologies and manufacturing solutions that deliver the greatest impact.
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