Final Thoughts Building biochemical valley Canada can be a global leader in green and sustainable chemistry By Julia Struyf, marketing and communications co-ordinator for Bioindustrial Innovation Canada, and A.J. (Sandy) Marshall, the executive director of Bioindustrial Innovation Canada. or over 70 years the petrochemi-cal industry drove significant global growth and expanded the chemistry industry. But control of greenhouse gas is creating transformation and development of a hybrid chemistry industry, setting a new global standard for the 21 st century. This shift puts Canada in a unique position to become a global leader in the world of chemistry. We have the resources to create a sustainable hybrid chemistry industry. The resources are agriculture, forestry and F The hybrid chemistry cluster in Sarnia-Lambton is emerging anchored by BioAmber and is now building out the first cellulosic glucose sugar supply chain in the world. waste materials. The knowledge is within Canada’s universities and industries, or oth-er areas of the globe that need our natural resources. In Sarnia, Ont., a true hybrid cluster has developed in the areas of green and sustainable chemistry, based on fostering partnerships and on having all the right individuals come together within industry, colleges, universities and governments to help support the cluster. The cluster is not only providing sup-port to Sarnia’s major chemical and re-fining industries, it is also critical to new industrial bio-sector built in Sarnia-Lamb-ton. Sarnia-Lambton is becoming a site lo-cation for the bio-based chemical industry and green energy (solar) industry. Sarnia is known for playing to its strengths and is characterized as a leader in the bioeconomy. Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC) has been a key organization in getting the Sarnia cluster established. BIC’s focus is to help Ontario and Canada become a glob-ally recognized leader in taking sustain-able feedstock, such as agricultural and forestry by-products and wastes, and turn-ing these renewable resources into ener-gy and value-added chemicals for use in applications ranging from construction to automotive parts. BIC in collaboration with partners such as the Sarnia Lamb-ton Economic Part-nership, Lambton College Applied Re-search Centres and the Western Sarnia-Lambton Research Park is aiming to position Sarnia-Lambton region as a world-scale Bio Hybrid and Chemistry Cluster. The cluster vision has attracted many bio-based SMEs (Small and Medium Enter-prises) and large industry to Sarnia-Lamb-ton for their pilot-scale and full-scale oper-ations projects including BioAmber, Suncor Ethanol, Comet Biorefining, Woodland Biofuels, GreenCore Composites and KmX Corporation. Sarnia-Lambton is succeed-ing in integrating green and sustainable chemistry with its traditional petroleum industries and consequently attracting in-vestment and creating jobs. Many of these bio companies rely on local SMEs for manufacturing, engineer-ing and environmental services. At BIC we have expanded our current business model to provide a new way of funding for SME’s. The Centre for Commercializa-tion of Sustainable Chemistry Innovation (COMM SCI), acts as a hub for commer-cialization of sustainable chemistry and bio-based innovation, providing business and technical support to participating SMEs. COMM SCI was established with support from the Federal Economic De-velopment Agency of Southern Ontario’s Investing in Regional Diversification ini-tiative and the Province of Ontario’s Min-istry of Research, Innovation and Science. COMM SCI along with BIC’s Sustain-able Chemistry Alliance Investment Fund invests in sustainable technology start-ups, which are key to our strategy and to building the Ontario bioeconomy. BIC has proven that it can create jobs and economic value sustainably for Cana-da. BIC has created thousands of jobs, lev-eraged over $150 million in investments for its 16 early stage companies and con-tributed to the transition towards a low carbon economy. The hybrid chemistry cluster in Sar-nia-Lambton is emerging anchored by BioAmber and is now building out the first cellulosic glucose sugar supply chain in the world. BIC has played an important role in establishing this cluster. For more information please visit www. bincanada.ca. • For the latest news, equipment and pellet profile features, visit www.canadianbiomass.ca. JUNE 2017 30 Canadian BIOMASS
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