The UK produces 26.5 million tonnes of food, forestry and agricultural waste each year, with no economic system in place to turn that waste into valuable materials. This matters because the UK currently relies on fossil fuels and scarce raw materials to make advanced functional materials—the high-performance substances used in everything from electronics to energy storage. That reliance contributes to over 30% of the UK’s CO2 emissions, particularly through importing raw precursors. The programme aims to build these materials instead from locally available bio-resources, creating a new supply chain that cuts emissions while boosting domestic manufacturing capability. If successful, the research could transform how the chemical, energy, waste, and agriculture industries operate. Waste that currently goes to landfill or incineration would instead become feedstock for high-value materials, reducing both emissions and import dependence. The project also trains the next generation of researchers and supports a nascent advanced materials industry in the UK. This is applied research with a clear industrial pathway: the team includes both leading UK academics and key industrial partners working across the entire supply chain.
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The UK Government recently set targets for "net zero emissions" and "zero waste" as well as a 10 Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution. Even so, the UK currently sources, processes and deploys advanced materials based on unsustainable practices, including the use of fossil fuels and scarce, geologically hindered raw materials. This contributes to over 30% of the UK CO2 emissions, especially considering the import of raw precursors and materials. Our vision is to build our most important functional materials from bio-based resources which are locally available. These materials will lower CO2 emissions, helping the UK to reach the targeted zero emissions by 2050 while boosting high-performance, locally available technologies and creating new industries. They will form the cornerstone for a modern technology-dependent economy. This programme grant brings together the best UK academics and key industrial partners involved in the development of a new supply chain for sustainable materials and applications. We will accelerate novel pathways to manufacture advanced materials out of available UK bioresources while boosting their performance working with stakeholders in key industrial sectors (chemical industry, advanced materials, energy, waste, agriculture, forestry, etc). The combined food, forestry and agricultural waste in the UK amounts to approx.26.5m tonnes each year. There is no valuable economic chain in the UK to allow waste valorisation towards high value-added materials. Yet, by mass, functional materials provide the most viable route for waste utilisation, preferable over waste-to-energy. This Programme Grant will thus enhance the UK's capability in the critical area of affordable and sustainable advanced materials for a zero carbon UK economy, providing multidisciplinary training for the next generation of researchers, and support for a nascent next generation of an advanced materials industry
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