Sustainable Innovation on the Horizon

We are excited to be working toward breakthrough discoveries that ensure smart sustainable and inclusive growth through our partnership with Horizon 2020 (H2020) Europe’s flagship research and innovation effort. IFF is playing a key role in three H2020 projects each of which has the potential to bring about lasting positive impacts – not only in our industry but also for the planet.

SunCoCHEM

SunCoChem (Sun Driven CO2 Conversion into Green Chemicals) is developing a reactor to manufacture valuable chemical products from renewable energies based on CO2 (present in flue gas) water and sunlight. The aim is to provide the industry with a new way to obtain oxo-chemicals without using raw materials derived from fossil fuels.

IFF is one of three industrial partners that represent potential end-users of this technology which would lead to a reduction in our CO2 emissions energy consumption water usage and dependence on fossil-derived feedstocks. We are providing a test-site environment for the case study products in order to ensure the scalability and feasibility of the process for the fragrance industry.

Multistr3am

Microalgae has the unique ability to convert atmospheric CO2 into highly sustainable building blocks of biomass. Multistr3am is working to overcome existing barriers to using microalgae by bringing down the costs of cultivation harvesting and downstream processing using a new kind of biorefinery to create high-quality in-demand products at scale.

Through this collaboration with several industry partners IFF is helping to validate whether algae materials can be successfully converted to high-quality building blocks for micro-encapsulation and fragrance ingredients thereby displacing fossil fuels. Additionally select waste streams have the potential to be repurposed as feed stocks for algae cultivation building the way to a more circular economy.

Plenitude

Plenitude aims to increase the availability of sustainable meat-alternative food-grade protein by building a first-of-its-kind bio-based value chain. The unique zero-waste process couples an aerobic fermentation plant (to produce a food-grade protein) with a conventional bioethanol refinery that uses sustainable inputs. Plenitude has the potential to deliver savings equivalent to ~5 tonnes of CO2e emissions for every tonne of mycoprotein consumed (~82% CO2 reduction compared to meat protein).

IFF’s role is to perform consumer and market studies of new protein sources as meat alternatives. We are also working with our partners in the project to develop market-appropriate products using IFF’s standard taste ingredient toolkit and product application insights.