ADEME

Drop-in fuels from waste oils, crops and residues — a stack from feedstock to certified SAF, renewable diesel and grid-injection biomethane.

Combining solar generation with agricultural activity on the same land — a stack from site assessment to dual-value harvest.

Biological air treatment systems utilizing microbial consortia to eliminate VOCs, odors, and industrial airborne pollutants.

The bamboo bioeconomy — engineered bamboo building materials (strand-woven timber, panels, framing and composite decking) from one of the fastest-growing plants on earth — led by MOSO (Netherlands), BamCore and Cali Bamboo (USA) and Dasso (China).

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage — burning biomass for power or heat and permanently storing the resulting biogenic CO2 — is moving from single flagship pilots to a small cluster of near-term commercial projects in Northern Europe, while a marquee US project shows how permitting risk, not the underlying chemistry, is what actually delays BECCS at scale.

Microbes and mineral carbonation bind aggregate into cement at room temperature — replacing the 1,500-degree kiln that makes Portland cement responsible for roughly 8% of global CO2 — turning concrete into a carbon-negative climate asset sold as tiles, self-healing structures and CO2-derived aggregates.

Microalgae photobioreactor panels and units built into a building's facade or air-handling system — living CO2/VOC scrubbers that also shade and pre-cool glazing — sold by architecture-biotech studios and consumer-hardware startups as a distinct, algae-based layer from the rooted-plant living-wall biofiltration hardware already covered on this site.

Finished bio-based flooring — linseed-oil linoleum, cork tile and plank, and bio-based carbon-negative carpet-tile backing — manufactured and sold by dedicated flooring producers (Forbo, Amorim, Globus Cork, Interface), the oldest bio-based building-materials category still in continuous commercial production.

Biological death care that replaces flame cremation and vault burial — natural organic reduction (NOR) vessel-composts human remains into soil (Recompose, Earth Funeral, Return Home, Herland Forest), while mycelium and biopolymer containers (Loop Biotech's Living Cocoon, Capsula Mundi's egg pod) close the nutrient loop.

Bio-based building insulation materials including hemp wool, mycelium composites, straw panels, and expanded cork.

Passive sensing of biodiversity — autonomous bioacoustic recorders, AI species identification (BirdNET), and environmental DNA metabarcoding — turning sound and water samples into scalable, verifiable biodiversity data for conservation, enforcement and corporate nature-risk disclosure under the TNFD.

Pyrolysing biomass into stable biochar — or fast-pyrolysis bio-oil injected underground — turns atmospheric carbon into a durable, monetisable climate asset, with soil-amendment value and certified carbon-removal credits as the twin revenue streams.

The reactor and balance-of-plant hardware that carbonises biomass into biochar plus heat and power — modular continuous carbonisers, biomass-cogeneration-coupled pyrolysis, and batch or mobile units — supplied by specialist manufacturers whose equipment is what makes certified biochar carbon removal physically possible.

Systematic monitoring, compilation, and reporting of bioeconomy flows into harmonized indicators, accounts, and dashboards for policy.

Microbial anaerobic digestion of farm residues, energy crops and food waste into biogas, upgraded to grid-injectable biomethane (RNG) — a regional biogas industry distinct from MSW-focused digestion.

Turning captured CO2 into fuels, proteins, polymers and methanol via microbial gas fermentation, engineered microbes and algae — a carbon-utilization value chain from industrial emissions to circular carbon products.

Combusting solid biomass to generate dispatchable baseload electricity and industrial heat.

Engineered living-wall, green-roof and biofilter systems integrated into the building envelope to deliver measurable indoor-air quality, stormwater and urban-heat-island gains — the hardware layer behind the biophilic-design amenity and the rental-and-sale green premium that is now underwritten by LEED, BREEAM and WELL rating points.

Biological treatment of toxic industrial wastewater — heavy metals, azo dyes, phenols and hydrocarbons from oil-and-gas, mining, textiles and microelectronics — using sulfate-reducing metal bio-precipitation, anaerobic membrane bioreactors and engineered degradation enzymes to recover metals and reuse water.

Carbon captured by marine ecosystems — mangroves, seagrass, salt marshes and cultivated seaweed/kelp — and the emerging industry of ocean farming, Sargassum valorization and marine carbon-dioxide removal (mCDR) that monetizes it via biomass products and durable carbon-removal credits.

Contracted ecological engineering that rebuilds seagrass meadows, salt marshes, oyster reefs and barrier dunes as a paid restoration service — distinct from coral-reef restoration and from blue-carbon cultivation-for-credits, this is site assessment, permitting, planting and monitoring delivered by environmental engineering firms to public agencies and developers.

Carbon markets, Cap-and-Trade systems (ETS), and biofinancing transform bioeconomy ecosystem services into tradable financial assets, driving decarbonization and nature-based solutions.

Geographic agglomerations of marine and coastal bio-industries — Iceland's 100% Fish cod-utilization cluster, Norway's GCE Ocean Technology, Maine's Bigelow Blue Biotech Studio and the NSF Seafood Engine, Qingdao's six provincial marine clusters and Xiamen Torch Group's marine park — that turn a coastal resource base into spinoff firms, byproduct upcycling and regional blue-economy growth, against a global ocean economy projected to double by 2030.

Lab-grown wood and engineered plant scaffolds — producing timber-like material from plant cell and tissue cultures, guided onto 3D scaffolds and lignified in vitro — an emerging early-stage route to wood without felling trees, led by Foray Bioscience with a research base at MIT, Yale, VTT and the Sainsbury Laboratory.

Crushed silicate rock — usually basalt — spread on farmland to accelerate the natural weathering reaction that draws down atmospheric CO2 into stable dissolved bicarbonate, with the added draw of a real agronomic side-benefit: the same application also raises soil pH and releases nutrients.

Smart biomonitoring of forests and agroecosystems fuses environmental DNA, satellite and LiDAR remote sensing, IoT sensor networks and AI to track biodiversity, biomass and crop/soil condition at national scale — for MRV, compliance and nature-risk disclosure.

Municipal solid waste, forestry residue and captured biogas are gasified into syngas and built up into jet-range hydrocarbons via Fischer-Tropsch synthesis — a thermochemical pathway distinct from the HEFA and alcohol-to-jet routes that dominate today's certified SAF supply, with 2026 commercial-stage projects in the UK, South Africa-licensed technology and a first US biogas-to-jet pilot.

Thermochemical and biological routes that convert biomass and biomethane into hydrogen — gasification followed by water-gas shift and PSA, bio-SMR of biomethane, and dark-fermentation R&D — anchored by gasification licensors, solid-oxide reformers and energy majors.

The coordination layer of the circular economy — geographic symbiosis networks, by-product matching platforms, material/digital product passports and circular supply-chain traceability that route one industry's residue to another's input.

Detection of invasive and protected species from water, soil and air samples via environmental DNA (eDNA) using droplet-digital PCR and NGS metabarcoding, enabling early-warning biosecurity surveillance for ports, hydropower, ballast water and conservation under the EU Water Framework Directive and NEPA.

Microbes and enzymes that degrade or destroy pollutants — waste plastic, PFAS, industrial effluents and municipal wastewater — a remediation value chain from contaminated streams to clean water, recoverable monomers and inert residue.

Electrogenic bacteria oxidize organic matter at an anode and hand off electrons to an external circuit, turning wastewater, soil or plant root exudate directly into low-grade DC electricity — a technology direction opposite to microbial electrosynthesis, generating power from waste rather than consuming it to make chemicals.

Microbes, enzymes and micro-fauna degrading microplastic already dispersed in soil and terrestrial matrices — a remediation value chain from plastisphere colonization to mineralization, distinct from industrial enzymatic plastic recycling.

Biological treatment of municipal sewage — activated sludge, membrane bioreactors, nitrogen/phosphorus nutrient removal, anaerobic digestion of sludge to biogas, and water reuse — a mature, globally deployed remediation value chain distinct from industrial effluent treatment.

The reverse supply chain that collects, stabilises, densifies and traces organic waste and biomass streams from generator to biorefinery — turning food waste, straw and waste fats into biogas, RNG, compost and sustainable fuels under circular-economy compliance.

Engineered soil-media and plant-based bioretention systems — compact, prefabricated cells installed at curb-side inlets, parking lots and roadways — that filter sediment, nutrients and metals out of urban stormwater runoff before it reaches waterways, sold as manufactured units by dedicated stormwater-treatment producers (Contech, Convergent Water Technologies, Zenebio, Imbrium Systems, Hydro International).

Bio-methanol and bio-LNG for shipping decarbonization — biomass-gasification methanol and anaerobic-digestion liquefied biomethane burned in dual-fuel marine engines, cutting well-to-wake CO2 by 60-95% under IMO and FuelEU Maritime regulation.

Engineered wood for the load-bearing structure of buildings — cross-laminated timber, glue-laminated timber and laminated veneer lumber — replacing steel and concrete in mid- and high-rise construction with a fraction of the embodied carbon, projected to grow the CLT market to $4.38B by 2030 at 18.1% CAGR.

Conversion of agri-food and industrial biowaste into higher-value non-food products (biochemicals, biomaterials, bioactive extracts, biochar) via enzymatic hydrolysis, supercritical CO2 extraction and mycelial/insect bioconversion, under circular-bioeconomy regulation.

The wild-harvest bioeconomy — non-timber forest products tapped, picked or foraged from wild stands: pine resin and terpenes (DRT), wild blueberries (Oxford Frozen Foods), sustainably-sourced botanical extracts (Symrise) and wild functional mushrooms (Four Sigmatic).