Biowerkz

Sustainability is at the core of our work. We aim to commercialize NEWood as new class of sustainable, biobased materials that is engineered to complement the role of wood-based products in construction and furniture industry by replacing energy-intensive and non-renewable components currently being used. Through the research and development works on NEWood, the founding team of Biowerkz with more than 10 years of work experiences, address at least five of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) namely Goal 11, Goal 12, Goal 13, and Goal 15.
Most importantly the global forests are under threat from deforestation and degradation due to excessive demand for wood-based products, secondly the CO2 emission from production of synthetic resins and binders for production of wood-based products have led to major negative impacts on climate change, and thirdly majority of the available wood-based products do not conform to circular economy principles; thus, actions need to be taken to reduce the pressure from our forest and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from our industries. With these respects “NEWood” has been developed to answer the call for sustainable and renewable materials while reducing the dependency to the extraction and processing of raw materials through application of mushroom mycelium as a natural binder to bind wood waste and agricultural waste by-products to create innovative, bio-based, and circular materials as alternative to freshly cut timber from our forest.

NEWood as boards, panels or any 3d forms can be applied within construction and furniture industry covering range of products currently being produced mainly from wood-based panels such as OSB, MDF and particleboards. To name a few potential areas of applications, NEWood can be used to produce the partition walls, drywalls, interior finishing, kitchen cabinets, door panels, interior furniture etc. Therefore, the main users of NEWood boards would be architects, contractors, building developers, homeowners, furniture designers, and building materials trading companies.

Biowerkz has an IP-heavy Asset-light business strategy. There are two revenue streams that are explained below:
1- Biowerkz partners with companies from wood and furniture and agriculture industries and collect their by-products and waste stream. The waste streams then will be processed further into mycelium based formulations at Biowerk partner mushroom farms. Biowerkz then transport the treated waste from its mushroom farm partners to its production facility where NEWood panels/boards are produced following the patented process developed by Biowerkz. NEWood semi-finished boards are then sold to customers who are contractors, building developers, furniture manufacturers or Interior designers. Biowerkz makes revenue through the sales of NEWood to various customers segments.
2- Biowerkz forms Joint Venture company with its potential partners from Wood and furniture industries. Biowerkz will have a stake in the JV while also makes revenue by licensing its technology to the JV. The JV then produces NEWood panels/parts for the range of customers whom are determined by the JV partners based on their market demand and market access. Through this process Biowerkz reduces its risks and will have two revenue streams.

Biowerkz patented process is the result of close to 5 years research and development works in Singapore and Germany.
The IP has been already filed to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, as the research university where the spin off company Biowerz comes from. The patent submission is currently under way. However it is confirmed that Biowerz will be able to have an exclusive license from KIT university and with a potential to take over ownership after certain milestones are fulfilled.

Given the fact that Biowerkz is an early stage startup, commercial application of NEWood has not yet been possible. However the team has completed a proof-of-concept project as a self-sustainable modular home, in Indonesian island of Batam, where NEWood panels are used as interior wall replacing the traditional wooden walls/partition walls. Also NEWood has been in various exhibitions in Berlin, Singapore and Zurich. Currently Biowerkz is working with three pilot project partners from construction and furniture industries and these partners will be able to employ NEWood in their projects once the pilot projects are successfully completed.

Employing OSB, MDF, Particleboards and similar engineered wood products within the construction industry does not come without consequences. Firstly, about a third of the wood extracted from natural forests worldwide is used for timber products. Today, timber harvesting is a major driver for deforestation across Europe which has led to adverse impacts on climate change and the environment. Secondly, the type of adhesives used to bind the wood particles and fibers create another challenge when it comes to environmental impacts from use of such products. Particleboards and Medium Density Fiber (MDF) boards are widely used within construction sector and are produced using mainly urea formaldehyde (UF) based adhesives. However, UF adhesives are known to produce formaldehyde emissions which is harmful to human health and their production rely primarily on non-renewable resources, thus they are not environmentally friendly, nor biodegradable and can increase the waste production at the end of their usage. Therefore, we need to think more radically with regards to development of more sustainable, material-efficient, and circular products for construction industry which replace products such as particleboards, MDF boards and even plastics.
With this fact in mind, Biowerkz addresses the above-mentioned challenges to establish new materials and production techniques that can address the demand for sustainable, high-performance, and affordable construction and furniture materials. our aim is to utilizes the million tons of organic waste in the form of wood waste and agricultural waste available as by-products of timber, food and agricultural industries and transform them with the power of fungi mycelium following a circular economy model into biobased and sustainable products with similar or better properties as alternative to OSB, MDF and particleboards used manly within construction and furniture industry. The novel process developed at Biowerkz allows the industry to move towards a circular economy model, thus leaving no waste behind.