Prolonging VAlue Chains

The idea of generating valuable substances from products that supposedly reached the end of their life-cycle is not new. However, industry suppressed it for many years, as the maxim of profit maximisation has lived regardless on losses of biodiversity and whole ecosystems.

Attempts to counteract start to happen again in the last years. The core idea is to see each plant as a direct supplier of valuable substances. Bio-cascading as an integrative concept of biorefining, is the biochemical, physical and thermo-chemical conversion of renewable resources to bioactive agents, new technical materials and primary energy carriers. So the plant is the raw material of many consecutive processing operations, where quality products derive after all. These fit seamlessly into the carbon cycle and are in succession exclusively compostable or used as fermentable or combustible “energy producers”.

Bio-cascading can be seen as a design tool. Production processes can be placed on the cutting edge of technology, while product variability achieves profitability and resilience. The applications are wide-ranging, formerly referred to as “junk” organic by-products become high-quality raw materials.

This usage of residual organic mass for efficiency and yield improvement open manufacturers and farmers new product opportunities and market gaps.