BETA TC joins the European project GRETE

The BETA Technology Centre has joined the consortium of the GRETE project, led by Finland’s leading technology centre, VTT, and funded through the BBI (Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking), the main European programme to boost the bioeconomy.

The GRETE project was launched in 2019, with the aim of finding sustainable alternatives to textile fibres derived from fossil fuels or cotton made with chemical and toxic products. It will work mainly on improving the value chain of wood-derived textiles: researchers will develop technologies to use paper pulp, derived from hardwood and softwood, as a raw material in the creation of synthetic textile fibres.

The consortium includes representatives from countries with very different forestry realities, from both northern and southern Europe. The sum of these realities should make it possible to design flexible solutions aimed at improving the technological performance of existing biorefineries, reducing operating costs and at the same time reducing their environmental footprint, both in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and resource efficiency.

Precisely, the experience of the BETA TC in this area has been most highly valued by the project coordination. In recent years, its Sustainability Accounting and Optimisation Area has worked on numerous projects financed by the BBI programme to ensure that the technologies and new biorefinery models they promote are truly sustainable from an environmental, social and economic point of view compared to the type of treatments they propose to replace.