Back from London's Rethinking Materials Summit, and 2 days of panels, keynotes and insightful conversations with fellow innovators. Lern more about what we took away below!
The Rethinking Material Summit took place in London on May 14-15th 2024. With its global reach, the event provides a platform to connect leaders who are developing and scaling sustainable alternative materials and circular solutions for consumer goods. Bringing together material innovators, brand owners, converters, policymakers and investors, the event follows a cross-sectoral approach and offers global networking opportunities. In our point of view, it is one of the most important events of the branch - definitely a must on our event list. Already ahead of the event, traceless' CEO & Co-Founder Anne Lamp was invited to the advisory board, providing the organizers with her insights as one of the pioneering companies in Germany.
all images credit: Rethink Events
After an inspiring intro session, our first highlight was a panel about Sustainable Feedstocks and Waste Stream Valorization, that our CEO Anne joined. Anne's messages on stage was a bold one: We need a systems change, in which products and business models need to be radically redesignd - using a broad variety of complementary solutions. Utilizing biomass plays an important role in this systems change, but we need to prioritize sustainable use following the cascade principle - for example by using agriculural side streams or other non-food biomass. This will be crucial to avoid trade-offs on biodiversity and forest preservation or food security. The other panelist complemented their perspectives from brand owner, chemical industry, recycling and certifications perspective. Inspiring!
In between many more interesting panels and keynotes, we used the chance to dive into personal meetings, and network with the globally growing ecosystem. We sensed a new level of collaboration between material producers, brand owners, converters and investors. That is great news, as it needs all of us to drive the change we need to see! Our approach to develop not just a material, but also operate and scale the refinery process from plant leftovers, definitely stood out. Also, we were super proud to be mentioned as one of the companies that could successfully close a big financing round recently, during challenging economic times. Great to see how this seems to inspire many other companies and investors!
Another highlight were the conversations with members of the Natural Polymers Group, in which we had the chance to discuss further activities, for example with an eye on the ongoing negotiations of the UN Plastics Treaty. Why? Well, even though natural polymer based biomaterials are well known in the innovator's field, the policy landscape still needs to be educated on their potential. Following a joint effort approach, we think it is crucial to join forces on this together with other innovators. And as these come from all over the globe, from the UK to the US to India and more, events like the Rethinking Material Summit are of huge importance. Learn more here: www.naturalpolymers.com