Forestry Sector Set Sights On High Value Bioproducts

“Recent pulp and paper mill closure announcements are set to be replaced by more positive news of exciting moves for using our log harvests. Several startups are in development to use forest resources for higher value export products both locally and overseas”, says forest technology director, John Stulen.

“Industry leaders from across the forestry supply chain are getting behind a new initiative to support new technologies and processes for extracting high value chemicals from logs and other forestry byproducts from sawmills”, Stulen says.

Local entrepreneurs are already developing new products from sustainable resources:

1. Making graphite using CarbonScape technology produces high-quality, sustainable bio graphite from renewable materials for greener lithium-ion batteries. An international forest company Stora Enso is now backing them.
2. Another success story is AgriSea. They are creating the world’s first commercial seaweed nanocellulose facility. Nanocellulose is a high value material with tensile strength stronger than steel and a co efficient of expansion less than glass making it a very high performance material in many applications.
3. Port Blakely New Zealand Essential Oils (PBNZEO), is now a global leader in sustainable essential oil production, is among the first essential oil producers worldwide
4. NZ Bio Forestry is a multi-national company that focuses on transforming plantation forestry biomass into bio-fuels, bio-chemicals and innovative materials.

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Now in collaboration Scion, the New Zealand Product Accelerator, chair Steve Wilson is initiating a new forestry biofactory to foster new developments for making new bioproducts from forest resources to deliver much higher value export products to fruition.

“To bring our industry innovators together we are pleased to announce a new conference called Forest Bioeconomy Innovations. It will run on 20-21 May, 2025 in Rotorua. We are bringing international startup leaders together with forest and wood technology innovators to supercharge new processes to complement and eventually replace pulp and paper mills to some degree,” says Stulen.

“We are also working closely with officials and the Minister at MPI/Te Uru Rakau, Scion's bioeconomy experts and key industry leaders to showcase sustainable and potential bioeconomy export products from New Zealand’s vast forest resources.”

In May 2025 leaders in business innovation and primary industries will gather at this new circular economy event – our NEW Forest Bioeconomy Conference: https://innovatek.co.nz/hubs/forest-bioeconomy/

About Innovatek - Everything we do for industry is for growing and improving our industry. For over 25 years, we have partnered with industry to bring innovators to the podium to share their successes with peers. This formula continues works well and has huge support form industry leaders and innovation specialists. . Our local forest and wood products industry continues to foster many young innovators who are bringing technology breakthroughs in their work in the forests up and down our country and want to grow our exports.

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