In 2008, Footballer Mathieu Flamini moved from Arsenal, where he spent four years as a tough but classy midfielder, to AC Milan in Serie A. At the same time, unknown to his dressing room colleagues in San Siro, he quietly embarked on a new journey.
Flamini, 38 years old, grew up in Marseille, in the south of France. Of course, football was his first passion, but living near the ocean made him aware of sustainability too – he could see plastic drifting ashore and he drew inspiration from the activity. environmental protection action of the famous explorer Jacques Cousteau.
When he moved to Italy, he and a friend – Pasquale Granata – began holding meetings with scientists and academics, looking for opportunities in the field of sustainability. Over time, they narrowed their focus to “green chemistry” and established GF Biochemicals.
Its main product is a little-known molecule called . levulinic acid, GFBiochemicals spent a decade figuring out how to mass produce it from agricultural waste. It sounds appropriate, even boring — a world away from the usual football businesses of NFT and fashion labels — but it can be transformative. It offers a “plant-based” alternative to oil-based chemicals that can be used in thousands of products, from paints to cosmetics, Flamini said.
Flamini was recently appointed CEO of GFBiochemicals, which has secured a €15 million (about $14.9 million) investment to get its products out of the lab and into industry. Levulinic acid is a building block – a platform that can be tweaked and altered to fit the requirements of different industries. GFBiochemicals has nearly 200 patents for plant-based solvents, polyols, and plasticizers — all of which can replace fossil fuel extracts, which have toxic by-products. or non-biodegradable.
“There is a huge transformation going on today in the chemical industry,” says Flamini. “And this transition is being accelerated by two factors.” The first is policy: The European Union is stopping thousands of hazardous substances and pushing industries to try replacing them with something cleaner. The second driver is public awareness of the potentially harmful effects on the ecology of insoluble chemicals over time.
“We are enabling the replacement of obsolete molecules, which are having a negative impact on the planet, with new molecules that reduce CO2.2 emissions and is biodegradable and non-toxic,” he said. Flamini adds that the company has performed a life cycle analysis for the plant-based solvent that shows it can cut CO2.2 emissions 80% of the equivalent emissions from fossil fuels.
Flamini hopes to reduce the proportion of extracted oil that is refined and used to make consumer products — a percentage that will increase as countries decarbonize and is projected to reach 50% by 2050. Everyone talks about fighting climate change and reducing CO2 emissions, but why don’t we talk about the petrochemical industry, which every day affects us all? ” he says.
