Sweden is investing in a 10-year project that aims to identify how forests can better support growth in the bioeconomy.
Treesearch is a collaborative and open research initiative, supported by the likes of Neste, Lund University and Stora Enso.
“We believe that many of the sustainable solutions of the future are based on lignocellulosic materials from the forest. As far as we are concerned, Treesearch is one way of raising the pace of innovative efforts to find alternatives to fossil raw materials,” said Lars Peter Lindfors, Senior Vice President, Technology at Neste. “Fundamental research alone will not meet sustainability challenges. For innovations to be implemented in reality more cooperation is required between academia and industry. Treesearch is just such an area in which innovations become reality, and it is for this reason that we think it so important to be involved.”
There is growing interest in the potential of what can be created using materials from the forest, with a multi-million euro facility to produce advanced biofuels from forest feed stock – for example – being built in Norway.
