We shouldmake a far bigger effort to live in harmony with nature, according to PaquesBiomaterials co-founder, Joost Paques. “That’s why it’s our mission to come upwith all-natural alternatives to the use of fossil plastic and find ways toscale their use worldwide,” he explains. He started development back in 2011and co-founded Paques Biomaterials in 2015. Its core business is to transformorganic residual flows into polyhydroxyalkanoates, or PHAs.
Joost: “Theseare polyesters, but produced in nature by microorganisms and bacteria.Technically, we’re looking at a fully natural replacement for fossil plastics.As a result, PHA is entirely biodegradable. It’s what we call a ‘bio-polymer’as it is entirely made by nature, with natural materials. This makes it fullycircular, because it will be degraded by nature.”
Paques’bio-polymer looks and behaves just like plastic, without the negativeby-effects. “It sports all of the advantages of fossil plastics: it looks justlike it, it can be processed in similar ways, it’s lightweight. But wecancelled out the primary downside, as it’s not made from fossil fuels, butfrom organic residue instead,” Joost says.
Nodoubt
“I’m a firmbeliever in ‘triple p’ – people, planet, profit. As we find ourselves within acapitalist system, it’s simply necessary to make profit in order for yourbusiness idea to survive,” he says. “As a result, the best solutions are theones that benefit the climate, improve human health, and make money at the sametime.”
Currently,PHA is already being used at a large scale for packaging and simple consumergoods like pens, cups, and so on. These PHAs are made of sugar and cooking oil.Paques Biomaterials produces it from organic waste streams and, as such, isn’tcompeting with food or feed production. Because of PHA’s superiorbiodegradability, Paques Biomaterials now primarily focuses on introducing itto the agricultural and horticultural sectors as well as the constructionindustry. Joost: “In all of these industries, bacteria and waste streams arecommon and so, the transition is relatively easy to achieve, as compared to thefood industry for example, where bacteria aren’t welcomed as wholeheartedly.”
“If everyonestarts using PHA, we will have far less plastic pollution, better health, moreclean water, less dependence on fossil fuels, as well as a thriving economybecause, no doubt, this technology is profitable,” Joost emphasizes.
Hereto stay
PaquesBiomaterials participated in the 2021 BeStart program. Joost: “At the time, wewere at the stage where we were ready to leave the lab and scale up to industryuse. But this requires some solid thinking regarding your business model andmarket strategy. In that sense, BeStart turned out to be the perfect programfor us at the right time. It proved to be of great value to be surrounded bythe right people and peers and to consider scaling strategies together.”
As a result,their focus increased tremendously. “There’s plenty of waste streams toconcentrate on, but during the BeStart program we realized the importance ofpicking and choosing. Consequently, we have focused exclusively on the paperindustry since and it’s greatly improved our business and impact,” Joostshares. “And the same goes for selling markets, since BeStart we have addedsignificant focus and it has helped our sales. Overall, I think it is fair tosay that participating in BeStart has centered our attention and has broughtpeace to the company. We’ve matured a lot and that maturity is here to stay,”he adds.
“What’smore, we are now far more connected to our peers in the northern provinces ofthe Netherlands, which has contributed to our work a lot, too,” says Joost.“There’s a ton of likeminded startups here that, as a result of BeStart’spresence in the region, know how to find each other quickly and easily. Withinthese ecosystems, companies group together to accommodate the types of scalingfacilities that they need. Also, they team up to jointly advocate for changesin legislation and regulations. We join hands as a group to benefit the wholein ways that we could never do by ourselves as just a small startup.”
