Our history

CARBIOS and its “fiber-to-fiber” consortium partners On, Patagonia, PUMA, Salomon, and PVH Corp., parent company of Calvin Klein, unveil the world’s first enzymatically recycled polyester garment made from 100% textile waste using CARBIOS’ pioneering biorecycling technology.

• For the first time, a piece of clothing is made entirely from textile waste – no bottles, no packaging, no virgin plastic. 100% biorecycled fibers.
• By developing and industrializing CARBIOS’ enzymatic depolymerization technology to achieve 100% “fiber-to-fiber” recycling, the consortium collectively advances the textile industry’s shift towards a circular economy.

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CARBIOS and Selenis have signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) to cooperate in the production of PETG. By leveraging CARBIOS’ unique enzymatic depolymerization technology and Selenis’ expertise in polymerization, the companies aim to develop a premium, sustainable PETG material made from PET waste for the Cosmetic and Healthcare packaging sectors across Europe and the U.S. This partnership follows a two-year collaboration between the two companies and represents a significant advancement in the plastic recycling industry.

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The SEELCAP^® ONEGO innovation is the fruit of a long-term partnership between SLEEVER^® and CARBIOS that combines their expertise to produce more environmentally friendly packaging security. SEELCAP^® ONEGO is an original, proprietary tamper-evident concept, consisting of two distinct but inseparable aims: the first to ensure tamper-evidence, and the second to enable easy opening in a single gesture with a gripping flap. Thanks to the inclusion of CARBIOS Active in the material, SEELCAP^® ONEGO disintegrates completely in composting conditions, even at room temperature, in less than 6 months.

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CARBIOS and SLEEVER^® have signed an exclusive, long-term contract to jointly develop Home Compost biodegradable mono-oriented transverse shrink films.

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CARBIOS and FCC Environment have signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) to jointly study the implementation of a UK-based plant using CARBIOS’ PET biorecycling licensed technology.  CARBIOS’ biorecycling technology is key to supporting FCC’s continuing goal of contributing to the circular economy by exploring new processes and technologies to produce recycled PET (r-PET) from PET plastic and textiles.

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CARBIOS and SASA have signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) to cooperate through SASA’s potential acquisition of a license for CARBIOS’ unique PET biorecycling technology. This licensing agreement would allow SASA to construct and operate an enzymatic depolymerization plant in Adana, Turkey, with a capacity of 100,000 tons per year of prepared PET waste, and would give access to a circular recycling technology, enabling the production of polyester pellets, fibers and textiles from various waste sources, including polyester textile waste. With CARBIOS’ biorecycling technology, SASA would diversify its offering to meet the growing global demand for sustainable materials in the textile industry, primarily catering to the European market.

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CARBIOS and Nouvelles Fibres Textiles work together towards a contract to supply post-consumer and post-industrial polyester textiles for the world’s first PET biorecycling plant. The 5-year contract covers a volume of 5,000 tons per year of prepared polyester textiles. The two companies combine their innovations to establish a complete ecosystem in France for textile circularity.

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CARBIOS and Toulouse Biotechnology Institute (TBI) publish groundbreaking article that presents enzyme optimization work leading to an enzyme-embedded PLA able to disintegrate and biodegrade in home-compost conditions faster than certification timeframe requirements. This new publication in Nature, widely regarded as the most influential scientific journal, comes in addition to the 2020 publication on enzymatic depolymerization of PET, confirming CARBIOS’ leadership in enzymatic engineering.

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CARBIOS and Zhink Group announce the signing of a joint Letter of Intent to build a biorecycling plant in China using CARBIOS’ revolutionary enzymatic depolymerization technology to serve the global market. This agreement officializes collaboration towards a long-term partnership in view of a first licensing contract to build a plant with a minimum annual processing capacity of 50k tons of prepared PET waste and would contribute to accelerating a circular economy for plastic and textiles.

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CARBIOS and TOMRA Textiles will collaborate to close the textiles circularity gap between collection of textile waste and innovative technologies for textile-to-textile recycling. This is a collaboration agreement to set up an efficient network in Northern Europe for the collection, sorting and preparation of textile waste for recycling, using CARBIOS’ enzymatic depolymerization technology at its first plant in Longlaville, France.

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L’OCCITANE en Provence, a long-term partner of CARBIOS, present a bottle in transparent PET made entirely from enzymatic recycling for a shower oil from the Amande range.  In collaboration with converter Pinard Beauty Pack, this bottle exemplifies a shared desire to build en efficient European recycling sector to accelerate the transition to a circular economy for plastic, and meet brands’ commitments for more sustainable packaging solutions.

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The partnership will leverage Hündgen’s expertise and network in the sourcing and preparation of light packaging waste collected from German households. This PET waste will be prepared into flakes ready for biorecycling using CARBIOS’ enzymatic depolymerization technology, which produces food-grade PTA and MEG, further re-polymerized into PET.

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April 25^th, Carbios celebrated the groundbreaking ceremony for the world’s first PET biorecycling plant in the presence of representatives of local authorities, partner brands and industrial partners who all make up CARBIOS’ ecosystem. Located in Longlaville, in the Grand-Est region of France, CARBIOS’ first commercial plant will play a key role in the fight against plastic pollution, offering an industrial-scale solution for the enzymatic depolymerization of PET waste in order to accelerate a circular economy for plastic and textiles. The plant will have a processing capacity of 50kt/year of prepared waste when operating at full capacity. Work is progressing on schedule with significant quantities delivered to customers in 2026.

Carbios was awarded 1^st prize in the “So French So Innovative” Award organized by Business France, the Hong Kong Committee of French Foreign Trade Advisors (CCEF), La French Tech and its partners at InnoEX 2024 (taking place in Hong Kong from 13 to 16 April).  The award recognizes French innovation to promote and support French Tech in the Asia-Pacific region. The final awards ceremony was held on the French pavilion in the presence of members of the Hong Kong Government and Christile Drulhe, Consul General of France in Hong Kong.

Paris Good Fashion is the association that unites over 100 French players in the sector – brands, designers and experts – around their commitment to sustainable fashion. CARBIOS is the first recycling technology supplier to join, demonstrating the importance given to recycling to achieve textile circularity. By contributing its revolutionary solution for the biorecycling of polyester, the world’s most widely used and fastest-growing textile fiber, CARBIOS aims to contribute Paris Good Fashion’s mission, which focuses on concrete actions, best practice sharing and collective intelligence to accelerate change in the fashion industry.

CARBIOS Active is included in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Inventory of Effective Food Contact Substances (FCS) with the Assigned Food Contact Notification (FCN) 2325, effective since 29 February 2024. With this milestone, CARBIOS Active can be used to make packaging materials that are sold in the United States and come into contact with food, including rigid and flexible packaging, and other applications.

The partnership will leverage Landbell Group’s expertise and network in the sourcing of PET packaging and textile waste which will be prepared for biorecycling.  Thanks to CARBIOS’ highly selective enzyme, less sorting and washing is required compared to current recycling technologies, offering future savings in energy and water use.  From 2026, Landbell Group will supply CARBIOS with 15 kt/year of PET flakes, ensuring a steady supply chain for sustainable PET production.  These flakes will serve as essential feedstock for CARBIOS’ production of food-grade PTA and MEG, further re-polymerized into PET.

Carbios was honored to welcome Mr. Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, Finance, Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, to its headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand where its industrial demonstrator is located.  In the presence of industry players, local representatives, partners, and investors, through his visit, the Minister showed his support for CARBIOS and the creation of a textile recycling industry.

This collaboration will spearhead the construction of the world’s first PET biorecycling plant. Under the agreement, De Smet has been entrusted with the project management and detailed engineering, including procurement assistance and CARBIOS partners’ management, to ensure the execution of the plant’s construction in Longlaville, France, due for commissioning in 2025.

Carbios was one of eight beneficiaries selected to present the progress of its industrial project in the presence of the President of the French Republic on the occasion of the two-year anniversary of the launch of the France 2030 investment plan.

The Solar Impulse Foundation recognizes Carbios’ breakthrough innovation and its adoption in 2021 by L’Oréal with the world’s first fully enzymatically recycled plastic cosmetic bottle

In October 2023, CARBIOS has been granted the building permit and operating authorization for the world’s first PET biorecycling plant, allowing construction to start.

The publication in ACS Catalysis, one of the world’s most influential scientific journals, compares the four best performing enzymes for PET degradation under industrial conditions and confirms the superior performance of Carbios’ enzyme.

The article demonstrates that Carbios’ enzyme LCC^ICCG (published in Nature in 2020) outperforms all three competitors considered most promising in scientific literature: two variants of the IsPETase enzyme produced by Ideonella sakaiensis described by the University of Manchester and the University of Austin (Texas) and a variant of PES-H1 (also known as PHL7) described by the University of Greifswald.  By using a standardized method for comparing PET degrading enzymes under industrial conditions, Carbios and Toulouse Biotechnology Institute (TBI) validate the superior performance of Carbios’ enzyme and confirm Carbios’ leadership in the field. Moreover, since 2020, Carbios has significantly enhanced the enzyme used in this article, further extending its lead.  This next-generation enzyme (results not yet published) will be used in the world’s first PET biorecycling plant due for commissioning in 2025.

Carbios inaugurated its textile preparation line at its demonstration plant in Clermont-Ferrand, in the presence of Mr. Lescure, French Minister for Industry.  To streamline the textile preparation phase, which is currently carried out by hand or on several lines, Carbios has developed a fully integrated and automated line that transforms textile waste from used garments or cutting scraps into raw material suitable for depolymerization with its enzymatic biorecycling process.  This patented line integrates all preparation stages (shredding and extraction of hard points such as buttons or fasteners), and provides Carbios with a high-performance, scalable development tool. The platform will help validate the biorecycling technology for textiles at demonstration plant scale (by 2024), and provides Carbios with expertise in working with collection and sorting operators to specify the quality of textiles and the preparation steps needed to make them suitable for enzymatic recycling. This expertise will also be invaluable to brands in the eco-design of their products.

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

 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.

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.

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.”   

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.