2023

Carbios incorporates its Purpose into company statutes

Carbios has written its Purpose into its statutes, as permitted by the PACTE Act of 2019, following the vote at the Annual General Meeting held on 22 June 2023, namely “to generate a positive and significant social, societal and environmental impact in the conduct of its activities”. This Purpose underpins Carbios’ business, which provides solutions to the environmental emergency of tackling plastic pollution.

 

Emmanuel Ladent, CEO of Carbios: “Since its inception, Carbios has always defined itself by the reason behind its activities: fighting plastic pollution. It is the very genesis of the company. By including this Purpose in our company statutes, at the very core of our activities, we strengthen our commitment to protect the planet and improve the life of those who share it.”

Click here to view Carbios’ Purpose video

2023

Recognized as a flagship start-up in French green innovation at the Choose France Summit

 Carbios has been chosen among the 22,000 start-ups in the French Tech ecosystem to represent French innovation at the 6th “Choose France” Summit.  “Choose France” is an international business summit dedicated to the attractiveness of France launched at the initiative of Emmanuel Macron, the President of the Republic. Only ten companies, including Carbios, have been chosen to exhibit their technologies at the Château de Versailles.  On this occasion, Carbios announces that it has joined the Coq Vert community launched by Bpifrance in partnership with ADEME and the Ministry of Ecological Transition, to connect with other environmentally committed business leaders and advance its international deployment.

 

2023

Carbios licensing documentation ready for worldwide industrial and commercial deployment (PET Biorecycling)

The successful ongoing operations in its demonstration unit in Clermont-Ferrand and the advanced engineering study for its first commercial plant (due to be commissionned in 2025) define the engineering basis and operational guidelines for units to be operated under license agreements.  From technology promotion with the Technical Information Summary to project development with a specific Process Design Package and Process Book, future Carbios licensees will be handed all necessary process documentation to reliably engineer, procure, construct and operate their PET biorecycling plants under stringent HSE standards and with high product quality.

2023

Carbios joins Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s circular economy network

Carbios shares the Foundation’s commitment to accelerate the transition to a circular economy, especially in the areas of plastics and fashion.  By joining the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Network, Carbios will connect with other leaders within the Foundation’s leading circular economy network of businesses, policymakers, academia, innovators, and thought leaders worldwide.

 

“Becoming a member of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Network is an important step for Carbios’ development, and an obvious one given our shared commitment to a circular economy,” said Emmanuel Ladent, Chief Executive Officer of Carbios. “With access to ideas, thought leaders and new collaborators, we’re excited to leverage the Foundation’s network of experts to support market access for our innovative solutions for reducing plastic pollution.”   

2023

Long-term exclusive strategic partnership with Novozymes

Carbios and Novozymes, the world leader in biological solutions, signed an exclusive long-term global strategic partnership. This major agreement ensures the long-term production and supply of Carbios’ proprietary PET-degrading enzymes at an industrial scale for the world’s first biological PET-recycling plant due to start production in 2025 in Longlaville (France), as well as Carbios’ future licensee customers.

 

Exclusive Global Partnership

Carbios and Novozymes have had a partnership since 2019 to develop enzyme-based solutions and address  the sustainability challenge of plastic pollution, both within PET-recycling and PLA-biodegradation.  Building on the current Joint Development Agreement (JDA), under the new agreement, Carbios and Novozymes will extend their collaboration to develop, optimize and produce enzymes that will subsequently be supplied by Novozymes to all licensees of Carbios’ technology.  The new agreement grants both parties exclusivity in the field of the partnership.

 

2022

First Sustainability Report

Carbios published its first Sustainability Report using 2021 as the baseline year. The report outlines Carbios’ commitment to developing environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives that go beyond the industrial development of its innovative plastics biorecycling technologies. Although not subject to the regulatory requirement of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD), Carbios has nonetheless structured its report in accordance with the requirements of the European directive on Extra-Financial Performance Statements.

Our sustainability strategy is based on three pillars (governance and ethics, the environment, social and societal issues) divided into 22 priority material challenges.  Each one has led to the implementation of a dedicated policy and the monitoring of specific KPIs to anchor sustainable development in the day-to-day operations and at the heart of governance.

Read the report

2022

The world’s first PET Biorecycling Summit

Carbios hosted the world’s first PET Biorecycling Summit from 7 to 8 December 2022 in Paris.  The event attracted over 100 international participants from the scientific, academic, and industrial worlds to exchange on the advances in the field of biological recycling, and how to bring these innovations for a circular economy to market.

The two-day conference gathered world-renowned scientists from various academic institutions to share their latest research on PET enzymatic depolymerization.  Bertrand Piccard, Initiator and Chairman of the Solar Impulse Foundation[1], joined as the Keynote Speaker for the last session focused on PET circularity, and praised Carbios’ contribution to reducing plastic pollution.  The Summit concludes with a visit of Carbios’ demonstration plant in Clermont-Ferrand today. The demonstration plant was inaugurated in September 2021 and brings Carbios’ technology one step closer to industrialization.  Following the demonstration plant’s success, Carbios is on track to build and operate the world’s first industrial-scale enzymatic PET recycling plant (with a processing capacity of 50.000 tons of PET waste per year) in France (Longlaville) by 2025[2], and to start licensing its technology throughout the world.

2022

Alain Marty Receives the Prestigious Biocat Award

This award is considered one of the most distinguished in biotechnology. Prof. Alain Marty is recognized for his significant achievements in the field of enzymatic recycling of plastics and PET fibers. This award recognizes his work on enzymatic optimization and the use of enzymes’ extraordinary specificity to the circular economy of plastics. Since 2004, this award has been given to scientists who have made remarkable contributions to the field of biocatalysis.

 

 

The Biocat Award was given as part of the 10th International Congress of Biocatalysis (Biocat), which was held at the Technical University of Hamburg (TUHH) from August 28 to 30, 2022. Over 370 scientists and industry representatives from 33 countries attended. Prof. Alain Marty was also honored to deliver the opening conference of this congress.

2022

WhiteCycle: A European consortium to recycle plastic waste

Carbios joined WhiteCycle, a project coordinated by Michelin, which was launched in July 2022.  Its main goal is to develop a circular solution to convert complex[1] waste containing textile made of plastic into products with high added value. Co-funded by Horizon Europe, the European Union’s research and innovation program, this unprecedented public/private European partnership includes 16 organizations and will run for four years.

 

WhiteCycle envisions that by 2030 the uptake and deployment of its circular solution will lead to the annual recycling of more than 2 million tons of the third most widely used plastic in the world, PET[2]. This project should prevent landfilling or incineration of more than 1.8 million tons of that plastic each year. Also, it should enable reduction of CO2 emissions by around 2 million tons.

 

Complex waste containing textile (PET) from end-of-life tyres, hoses and multilayer clothes are currently difficult to recycle, but could soon become recyclable thanks to the project outcomes. Raw material from PET plastic waste could go back into creation of high-performance products, through a circular and viable value chain.

2022

Carbios and TBI publish an article in a prestigious scientific journal: Biophysical Journal

Carbios strengthens its world leadership in the biorecycling of plastics and textiles

Carbios and TBI published an article entitled “An NMR look at an engineered PET depolymerase” in the scientific journal Biophysical Journal. The scientists at Carbios and at the Company’s renowned academic partner, The Toulouse Biotechnology Institute (TBI) are at the forefront of enzymatic research and innovate every day in order to optimize the end-of-life of plastics and textiles.

 

The article describes the use of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to study the thermal stability of PET depolymerization enzymes and the mechanism of adsorption of the enzyme on the polymer. This innovative approach, which required months of development, is a world first and opens up new ways of improving these enzymes. This publication confirms Carbios’ international lead in the development of the most efficient enzymes for the depolymerization and recycling of plastics.

2022

Carbios, On, Patagonia, PUMA, PVH and Salomon team up to advance circularity in the textile industry

An important element of the two-year deal will be to speed up the introduction of Carbios’ unique biorecycling technology, which constitutes a breakthrough for the textile industry. Carbios and the four companies will also research how products can be recycled, develop solutions to take-back worn polyester items, including sorting and dismantling technologies, and gather data on fiber-to-fiber recycling as well as circularity models.

 

The challenge the brands share, is that their ambitious sustainable development goals can only partially be met by conventional recycling technologies which mostly target bottle-to-fiber recycling. Future regulations will require more circularity in packaging and textile. Yet the market consensus is that there will soon be a shortage of PET bottles, as they will be used for circular production methods in the Food & Beverage Industry.

2022

To build in France its first-of-a-kind manufacturing plant for fully bio-recycled PET in partnership with Indorama Ventures

After having successfully started-up its demonstration plant in Clermont-Ferrand, Carbios is now moving one step further towards the industrialization and commercialization by partnering with Indorama Ventures. The goal is to build and operate in France the world’s first industrial-scale enzymatic PET bio-recycling plant, with a processing capacity estimated at ca. 50.000 tons of post-consumer PET waste per year, equivalent to 2 billion PET bottles or 2.5 billion PET trays.

2021

Carbios receives support from the European Commission

Read the presse release

 

arbios announced that it has received alongside two significant partners T.EN Zimmer GmbH and Deloitte € 3.3 million – including € 3 million for Carbios – in the form of a European grant. T.EN Zimmer GmbH, will provide its expertise on monomer repolymerization in 100% recycled PET, and Deloitte on the environmental performance analysis (mainly through the Life Cycle Analysis) of the process for plastic and textile waste.

 

The European LIFE funding program is a major grants tool that supports innovative solutions with low environmental impact and a track record of industrial deployment. Carbios’ C-ZYME™ technology fully complies with the European Commission’s goals.

2021

Nomination of Emmanuel Ladent

Emmanuel Ladent, CEO of Carbios

Emmanuel Ladent, 52, a graduate of the Neoma Business School, has 30 years of experience in the automotive sector and more specifically in mobility. Most recently, he managed the MICHELIN Group’s largest business line, the Automotive Global  Brands division. His management career is characterised by a strong international background, with more than 20 years spent working on several different continents. Specialised in business transformation through innovation, Mr. Ladent has contributed to the development of subsidiaries with multi-billion euro turnovers. Through strong leadership, he has been able to unite interdisciplinary and intercultural teams around a common vision and ambitious goals.

2021

Operational launch of the industrial demonstration plant

Our first demonstration unit is operational since September 2021.

The demonstration plant marks the culmination of the development of the C-ZYME® technology. It will allow the validation of the enzymatic PET recycling process’ technical, environmental, and economic performance, as well as the design of future industrial units. By the end of 2022, its operation will enable the complete engineering documents for the process (Process Design Package) to be drawn up for the building and operation of a 40,000-tonne/year capacity reference unit as well as future factories to be run under licensing agreements.

2021

Carbios' PET Consortium unveils its first branded bottles

Each Consortium company has successfully manufactured sample bottles – based on Carbios’ enzymatic PET recycling technology – for some of their leading products including: Biotherm®, Perrier®, Pepsi Max® and Orangina®.

Today’s announcement is the culmination of nearly 10 years’ research and development by Carbios to create a new process and supercharge an enzyme naturally occurring in compost heaps that normally breaks down leaf membranes of dead plants. By adapting this enzyme, Carbios has fine-tuned the technology and optimized this enzyme to break down any kind of PET plastic (regardless of color or complexity) into its building blocks, which can then be turned back into like-new, virgin-quality plastic.

2020

First PET bottles made from textile waste

Production of the first PET bottles with 100% Purified Terephthalic Acid (rPTA) from the high PET content textile waste. This world-first confirms the capacity of our technology to recycle PET textile waste and thus opens up access to an additional recyclable waste stream of around 42 million tons per year.

2020

Publication of our research work in the scientific journal Nature

Carbios published an article in the prestigious scientific journal “Nature” entitled “An engineered PET-depolymerase to break down and recycle plastic bottles”. It is co-authored by scientists at Carbios and its renowned academic partner, Toulouse Biotechnology Institute (TBI.)

Alain Marty, Chief Scientific Officer of Carbios and co-author of the Nature article: “I am very proud that Nature, one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world, has validated the quality of the work carried out by Carbios’ scientists and the TBI laboratory on the development of our proprietary enzyme and the revolutionary PET recycling process. The performance obtained confirms the industrial and commercial potential of the process, which will be tested in 2021 in our demonstration plant.”

Publication of a PET waste degradation yield of 90% in just 10 hours, which represents a major step up from the initial yield of 1% in several weeks.

2020

Creation of a cooperative laboratory with INSA Toulouse

Strategic alliance with INSA Toulouse through its internationally recognized laboratory TBI (Toulouse Biotechnology Institute), a mixed research unit (INSA Toulouse, INRA, CNRS.) Called “PoPLaB” (Plastic Polymers and Biotechnologies), this laboratory is the culmination of seven years of scientific collaboration that resulted in the first PET bottles produced by enzymatic recycling of used plastics

2019

Launch of the CE-PET project financed by ADEME PIA no. 1882C0098 (pilot scale)

This project involves piloting the process on plastic PET waste, with an enzymatic depolymerization step in a 1m3 reactor. During the course of the project, PET will be transformed into products such as bottles and textile yarns, in order to demonstrate the circularity of the process.

Our pilot plant optimizes the stages of pre-treatment of plastic and textile waste, depolymerization of PET and purification of monomers.

2019

Nestlé Waters, PepsiCo and Suntory Beverage & Food Europe join the consortium founded by Carbios and L'Oréal

The Consortium’s partners hope to industrialize Carbios’ technology and thus increase the availability of high-quality recycled plastics to support their commitments to sustainable development. As part of this collaboration, technical steps and support are planned to ensure a good supply of 100% recycled PET plastics worldwide.

 

2019

First PET bottle made from plastic waste

Production of the first PET bottles with 100% Purified Terephthalic Acid (rPTA) from the enzymatic biorecycling of used plastics. This major step is a world first that confirms the potential of our technology to engage the industry in a responsible transition towards a circular economy model.

2016

Creation of Carbiolice and grant of a patent license (PLA biodegradation)

Carbios, Limagrain Ingrédients and the SPI “Société de Projets Industriels” investment fund operated by Bpifrance, join forces to create a joint venture, Carbiolice, which will produce and market enzyme products for the production of biosourced and biodegradable plastics.

Signing of a license enabling Carbiolice to use the patented enzymatic biodegradation technology of plastics developed by Carbios

2013

IPO

The offer, which closed on December 12, 2013, met with considerable interest from the general public. The overall demand for the offer (OPO and Global Placement) amounted to €14.15 million.

2012

Launch of the THANAPLAST collaborative R&D project

One of the first projects in the field of end-of-life plastics recovery, bringing together, around Carbios, several academic and industrial partners (CNRS, INRA, TWB, Poitiers University, Deinove, Limagrain and the Barbier Group) and supported by Bpifrance. Project successfully completed in 2017.

2011

Creation of Carbios by Truffle Capital