Speakers 2022

Researcher of Biodegradability and Compostability Group and member of the Biotechnology Research Group of AIMPLAS. Agroindustrial engineer with Ms.D in food science and technology from the Universidade de Viçosa and Ph.D in food science, technology and management from the Universitat Politècnica de València, both focused on the development of bioplastic materials with antioxidant and antimicrobial activity for food packaging. She also has experience in the study of liposomal encapsulation systems for bioactive compounds and in the stability of colloidal systems incorporated into polymeric matrices. Author of several scientific publications in indexed international journals. Currently, she is focused on the study and improvement of biodegradation processes of bioplastic in the marine environment and composting conditions. 

Stefan is a seasoned business leader with a background in chemistry and an EMBA from IMD in Switzerland, having worked throughout the total value chain from raw material producers to brand-owners. He has more than 12 years of experience in the biopolymer industry, and he worked in 7 countries, for over 14 years in Asia and the Middle East and for over 20 years in Europe. Stefan is passionate to demonstrate that biopolymers can play a positive role in society if properly designed and focused on practical solutions and with the overall lowest impact on the environment in mind. He aims to use his experience to build bridges between the different interest-groups from farmers, via industry to consumers and NGO’s, to secure the next generation an intact nature and a living standard with a lower environmental impact.

Glauco Battagliarin is a research scientist and team leader working in group research at BASF. He joined BASF in 2012 and moved in 2015 to biopolymer research, where he is currently leading a team investigating and simulating the biodegradability and environmental fate of materials in different end of life scenarios. He studied material science at the University of Milano Bicocca and did his Ph.D. in chemistry at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz.

Martin Bussmann studied mechanical engineering in Essen and Lille, France. After his PhD at Aachen University, he joined BASF SE for application development of technical and styrene polymers. The past 10 years he led all activities in compostable packaging for BASF, including brand owner driven projects.
Since October 2021, he has been working for neste as Senior Brand Owner Manager to create a pull along the value chain for neste-based polymers and chemicals.

Alberto Castellanza graduated in 1994 in Chemical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano University. He started his professional experiences as junior project manager at Milan office of Det Norske Veritas (DNV) into the sector of environmental certification management systems, then moved into the packaging industry sector as technical service manager of Goglio SpA, focusing his experience on flexible packaging for food and non-food applications. He is currently International Sales Director at Novamont SpA and Managing Director of Novamont GmbH; he combines a strong technical background in packaging and plastics converting industry with skills in international sales, strategy and business development and worldwide knowledge of the emerging market of bioplastics.

Fabian Coosmann is responsible for key account- and project-management at NaKu based in Vienna. The Austrian company offers a wide range of bags and bottles and is a reliable partner for projects and product developments in the field of bioplastics. Fabian is passionate about working with people and contributing to shaping the future of biobased and compostable products. During his mechanical engineering – management and ecological product design studies he gained vast knowledge in the fields of engineering, business administration and sustainability. He is experienced in life cycle assessments of bioplastic products and is involved in various projects around circularity and sustainability such as BiBi-TGA. Outside of work Fabian is an enthusiastic cyclist and mixed basketball player.

Jorge is an environmental scientist and PhD in chemical engineering with background in sustainability and process optimization. He has been working for several years in international academic and research institutions (University of Cantabria (Spain), PIK and TU Darmstadt (Germany)) and nowadays is working for JRC of the European Commission – D.3. Land Resources Unit. His main research topic at JRC is on waste management, mainly on municipal solid waste – including biodegradable plastics – and construction and demolition waste. His work intends to support the Circular Economy Action Plan 2.0 and the revision of the Waste Framework Directive.

Davies is responsible for the Performance Packaging Business at NatureWorks, a company formed with the mission of bringing to global markets a broad family of naturally advanced, renewably sourced, materials.  He regularly represents the broader bioplastics industry, providing a provocative perspective on functional materials innovation to audiences that span from manufacturers, to trade associations, consumer brands, and policy makers.

François de Bie is Senior Marketing Director at TotalEnergies Corbion. In his function he is responsible for all business development activities with brand owners and key converters. Prior to Corbion, François de Bie worked for more than 15 years for the companies GE Plastics and EconCore and coordinated their business development, marketing and sales and product management. He holds a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, specialized in polymers technology from the Eindhoven University of Technology.

Oliver Ehlert holds a Diploma in chemistry from University of Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany where he also completed his PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) at the Faculty of Engineering, Department Microsystems Engineering. From 2009 to 2011 he worked at the Federal Institute of Materials Research and testing (BAM), Department Thermochemical Residues Treatment and Resource Recovery in Berlin, Germany. Since 2012 he has been working as Product Manager for Compostable Materials and Bio-based products at DIN CERTCO in Berlin, Germany. Since 2017 Oliver Ehlert is the convenor of CEN/TC 261 SC 4 WG 2 on Degradability and organic recovery of packaging and packaging materials.

Sven Engelmann has been in Plastics and Packaging business for more than 20 years. He started his career in the Development Department for the thermoforming machine manufacturer Illig (Heilbronn, Germany), being responsible for Application Technology and Polymer Materials. Followed by Director positions for Polymer Technology at Schubert Packaging machinery (Crailsheim, Germany) and Engineering & Applications at Ferromatik Milacron Injection moulding machinery, he returned 2016 back to ILLIG to become the Director of Packaging Technology and ILLIG Technology Center. He is the author of the book “Advanced Thermoforming” and many articles concerning thermoforming, injection moulding and polymer processing

An Italian national, graduated in Diplomacy from the University of Trieste (Italy), with a Master in European Studies from the University of Brussels, Silvia Forni is a European official with over 15 years’ experience in the field of the European internal market. She is currently working at the Environmental Department of the European Commission as a policy officer (Directorate for Circular Economy). Previously, she has worked as parliamentary assistant in the European Parliament and as a policy officer first at the Secretariat-general of the European Commission, then, at its Transport Department.

Nana Fujishiro joined Asahi Kasei Corporation, a Japanese chemical company in 2009. She has been responsible for sales and marketing in the textiles and electronic materials department for 10 years. She obtained her MBA at Rotterdam School of Management in 2016. Since 2019, she has been working as a new business development specialist in the Green Solution Project. From 2019 to 2020, she worked in Asahi Kasei Europe in Germany, accountable for regulatory affairs and business development related to the Hydrogen business. In 2022, she moved back to Japan and is now responsible for regulatory affairs and business development related to bio-based chemicals, a technology which is under development at Asahi Kasei. 

Christian Geltinger is currently in charge of Bioeconomy affairs within the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy in Munich, Germany.  For over 15 years, he served as the State of Bavaria’s representative to China (2006-2010) and Japan (2010-2022), with offices in Qingdao and Tokyo respectively. He was also instrumental in setting up the State of Bavaria Korea Office in Seoul in 2001. He joined the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs in 1999, being in charge of international marketing and investment promotion for Bavaria with focus on life sciences, automotive, IT as well as on the Asian and North American markets. Christian is a trained molecular biologist from the University of Munich and the Helmholtz Centre Munich and completed his Post-Doc studies at the RIKEN in Japan.  He was born in Freising, is married and has two daughters.

Francesc Giró i Fontanals is an Agricultural Technical Engineer from the Barcelona School of Agriculture. He has been professor of Chemical Analysis at the Department of Agronomy of the Escola Superior d’Agricultura de Barcelona (ESAB) attached to the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), where he combined teaching tasks with research tasks, always related with the quality control of compost and composting processes.
Since 1993 he has been working at the Catalan Waste Agency as a technician responsible for promoting the separate collection and biological treatment of bio-waste, as well as the production of quality compost. From February 2011 to 2016, he has assumed the functions of Deputy Director of the Waste Agency of Catalonia.
From 2016 to the present, he has been the Director of Strategic Planning of the Waste Agency of Catalonia, being the person in charge and coordinator of the elaboration of the Program for the Prevention and Management of Waste and Resources of Catalonia (PRECAT), and at this time of the drafting of the Draft Law on the prevention and management of waste and the sustainable use of resources in Catalonia. He is a founding member of the European Compost Network (ECN).

Cameron has served as Genomatica’s Vice President, Licensing, since February 2015. For over 25 years, he has held various roles in the chemical industry, across new venture creation, business leadership and chemicals and materials manufacturing. From July 2006 to January 2015, Mr. Hibbert was at LyondellBasell, most recently leading the Business Management of Polyolefin Licensing. From June 1997 to July 2006, Mr. Hibbert held roles spanning operational leadership, commercial management, capital projects and engineering roles at Basell, Montell and Shell. He received his bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering (Hons.) from Monash University in Melbourne and a Master of Business Administration (Hons.) from the University of Melbourne, Australia.

Dr. Andrej Holobar is the CEO of ECHO Instruments from Slovenske konjice, Slovenia. Andrej received his PhD from the Karl Franzens University of Graz in Austria, Department of Chemistry. The main topic was in the field of optical chemical sensors. After his PhD, he worked at the Faculty of Biotechnology of the University of Ljubljana, in the field of sensor application in bioprocesses. He continued his journey in his own company where they manufacture high-tech measuring devices for biotechnology, pharmacy and medicine. He is also a member of the Expert Group on Chemical Legislation and participates in the SEVESO Directive. His main activity in projects is the development and application of respirometric methods for monitoring biological processes and studying effects of various factors on the environment. He is particularly interested in the development and use of the latest sensor techniques in the implementation of measurements in biotechnology and ecology. In addition to work, he enjoys dancing Argentine tango, sailing and is an amateur musician.

Christian Holzleitner is currently Head of Unit responsible for Land economy and Carbon removals at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Climate Action. Previously, he worked as Head of Unit for Finance, Innovation and Land Use and as assistant to the Director-General for Climate Action covering all issues related to EU and international climate policy; and at the Directorate-General for Competition in the area of State aid for services of general economic interest in the postal, transport, and health sectors. Before joining the European Commission, Christian worked as senior manager with KPMG Germany on international transfer pricing. Christian is an economist and holds a PhD from the University of Linz (Austria).

Dr. Sheila Khodadadi is a project leader at Avantium and coordinator for PEFerence project. PEFerence is an EU H2020 flagship project to establish a globally first-of-a-kind, industrial scale, cost-effective 2,5-Furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) biorefinery plant producing bio-based chemicals and materials. The focused polyester, Polyethylene Furanoate (PEF), can be used for bottles, films and fibres to replace a significant part of fossil-based polyesters, but also technologically superior packaging materials like glass and aluminum.
Sheila has a PhD in Polymer Science from The University of Akron, USA with over 10 years of product and process development experience working with academia, research institutes and industry.

Dr. Albrecht Läufer is co-founder and managing director of BluCon Biotech GmbH, Cologne. BluCon Biotech develops the world first process to directly convert lignocellulosic biomass to lactic acid by fermentation; lactic acid is a precursor for the bioplastic PLA, polylactic acid. Läufer has established the Corvay group of companies; Corvay Consult and Corvay Specialty Chemicals both in Hannover, and Corvay Bioproducts in Köln.

Henning Löcken is a scientific researcher in the Fabric Production department with focus on Knitted Fabrics at ITA Institut für Textiltechnik of RWTH Aachen University, Germany. He completed his studies in Industrial Engineering with a focus on textile engineering at RWTH Aachen. The goals of his department are material and yarn selection for knitting processes, along with the development of knitting processes and product development of knitted fabrics. Furthermore, he develops concepts and constructs machinery and tools for production. The knitted fabric production is investigated with a broader view on the whole textile value chain – starting from the polymer and ending at a finished product like a shoe. His focus lies in the investigation of the knittability of sustainable yarn materials, especially at a small scale. Starting at an early point of time in the production process grants the possibility to increase the sustainability of a product right from the beginning. Efficiency and sustainability are always part of his main goals.

With more than 15 years of practice in process development and engineering for the bio industry sector, Emilien is responsible for the licensing of bio-SAc technology by Technip Energies. Prior to this role, he was technology manager of PLA technology PLAnetTM which is also licensed out. Emilien is a Bioprocess Expert for Technip Energies and located in Lyon, France. He is a graduate engineer in Food Science from INPL, Nancy. 

Ramani Narayan is University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University — the highest honor that can be bestowed on a faculty member. He is a Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors; Fellow, ASTM & ASTM award of merit — the highest award given by the society to an individual member. He has been awarded the Governor’s (State of Michigan) University Award for commercialization excellence; Michigan Green Chemistry Governor’s Award; Fulbright Distinguished Lectureship Chair in Science & Technology Management & Commercialization (University of Lisbon; Portugal); DuPont’s Packaging Award for excellence in Innovation & Sustainability, as part of the Coca Cola Plant bottle team, and many others.
Professor Narayan is Scientific Chair of the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) USA; and convener/technical expert on ISO committees; He has 200+ refereed publications, 30 issued patents, and graduated 20 Ph. D and 25 Master’s students.

Dr.-Ing. Vinzenz Nienhaus is technical managing director at BIOVOX, a company that develops and distributes sustainable plastics for the healthcare market. After studying mechanical engineering, he wrote his dissertation on the processing of bioplastics in 3D printing at the TU Darmstadt and has years of experience in plastics processing, analytical measurements and the development of medical bioplastic implants.

Jan Pels has obtained a PhD in Chemical Engineering at the Delft University of Technology. He has been working as a researcher for almost 25 years at the Energy Research Centre of The Netherlands (ECN, now part of TNO). His primary work involved upgrading of biomass to clean fuels using hydrothermal treatment, known as TORWASH®. Since 2018, he has adapted this process to chemical recycling of plastics for applications involving composites and post-consumer packages. Currently, Jan Pels is the CTO of the spin-off company TORWASH BV, dedicated to up-scaling and commercialization of the TORWASH technology. In close cooperation with TNO, he is developing the concept of Recyling-by-TORWASH. 

Erik has a background in polymer chemistry and has spent his 20-year career in the field of Innovation and Marketing. Over the years, at various companies, he has worked in a broad variety of industries, from the paper industry to coatings all the way to food and personal care. He has a true passion for business growth and innovation, strategy development and the human factor in business. His drive is to create a match between the needs of the customer and the solutions that Biotec can bring.

Currently he works as senior expert at the Italian Composting and Biogas Association (C.I.C.), which unites public and private companies, local authorities and others involved in the production of compost. In 2017 he took over the responsibility for the association’s certification scheme for compostable plastics. Marco has 20 years of experience in planning consistent MSW management, designing and upgrading of collection and transport schemes, assessing recycling facilities (focus on composting), working in multi-linguistic, multi-tasking working groups or projects both in ́high-́ and low to middle income countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia. With a specific engagement for MSW solutions in cities he supported the City of Milan (Italy) in setting up the recycling scheme for food waste in 2012 and defined the strategy for organic waste diversion and recycling for the Mega-City of São Paulo do Brazil. In the last years he supported other Cities such as Paris, Madrid and more recently Bratislava and Prague in setting up their strategies and schemes to divert organics from disposal to recycling.

Mathias Schmitz is a scientific researcher in the Multifilament Technology department at ITA Institut für Textiltechnik of RWTH Aachen University, Germany. He completed his Bachelor and Master of Science in Computational Engineering Science at RWTH Aachen with a focus on textile engineering. The goals of his department are to develop economic, ecologic and social solutions for the production, use and recycling of polymeric multifilament yarns in highly technical as well as commodity applications. By doing this, the whole textile value chain is investigated – starting from the polymer and ending at a finished product like a shoe. His focus lies in the process development for melt spinning of man-made yarns, in particular polymeric multifilament yarns from recycled or bio-based polymers, special cross-sections, functionalised yarns and much more. Furthermore, he focuses on the texturing process to give a natural fibre-like feel to man-made fibres for applications like clothing, home textiles or automotive. The efficiency and sustainability are always part of his main goals.

Entrepreneur, compost pioneer, organic farmer, chairman of the Austrian Compost & Biogas Association, initiator and president of the alliance “bündnis mikroplastikfrei”.  Hubert Seiringer started producing high-quality compost from organic waste more than 30 years ago. As chairman of the Compost & Biogas Association Austria he has been campaigning for the circular economy of organic waste for many years. He is also a very active project developer and works on several systemic solutions in the field of circular economy and bioeconomy.