"bioplastics have a potential for being truly sustainable"8th european bioplastics conference connects expert elite on bioplastics berlin, 12 december 2013. &bdquobioplastics made from biofeedstock, and reintegrated into the biosphere as a nutrient, or recycled together with conventional plastic, clearly have a potential for being a truly sustainable material. and it could reduce fossil fuel consumption,&ldquo stated eu environment commissioner janez potonik in his opening speech to the 8th european bioplastics conference on the 10 and 11 december in berlin, germany. in his video message he pointed to the crucial role, bioplastics can play in europe&lsquos transition towards a circular biobased economy. potonik encouraged the bioplastics industry &bdquoto continue their work on making bioplastics a truly sustainable material, neutral in its impact on food production and biodiversity&ldquo. however, he also pointed out that the industry needs to continuously and transparently inform the public about their products and processes in order to clarify its position and prosper in the future. these recommendations were picked up directly by a group of experts in a panel discussion on sustainability criteria investigating the most relevant question &bdquohow to assess the sustainability of bioplastics in a fair way&ldquo. the panel started with a presentation by professor matthias finkbeiner from the technical university berlin on &bdquoperspectives of life cycle assessment of bioplastics&ldquo. &bdquolca is still the best available tool to assess the environmental performance of bioplastics as factbased as possible&ldquo, finkbeiner stated and commented on the product environmental footprint pef approach introduced by the european commission as &bdquolca overkill introducing pseudo solutions in order to achieve comparability&ldquo. the panel discussion then focussed on the need to break down the complexity of assessing the sustainability of bioplastics, the need to use available and valid methodologies and to provide easy to use tools to consumers to understand these assessments and how they impact on the product they are using. another highlight of the 8th european bioplastics conference was the annual market data update by european bioplastics and the institute for bioplastics and biocomposites ifbb university of applied arts hannover, germany. the data once more emphasised the success of bioplastics industry with production capacities multiplying from around 1.4 million tonnes in 2012 to more than 6 million tonnes in 2017. all material types are gaining ground with biobased, nonbiodegradable &lsquodropin&rsquo solutions, such as biobased pe and biobased pet, leading the field.  biodegradable plastics, including e.g. pla, biodegradable polyesters and starchblends, are also demonstrating impressive growth rates. their production capacity will gain around 60 percent by 2017. the bioplastics magazine&rsquos 8th annual global bioplastics award honoured company helmut lingemann gmbh & co.kg for their new spacer system nirotec evo, which is applied in windows and facades using double and triple glazing. the award jury chose the profiles because of the tailormade blend of different biopolymers based on pla, biopolyester and further additives providing a number of special mechanical and thermal properties combined with the important feature of &lsquono fogging&rsquo. more information on the award can be found athttpwww.bioplasticsmagazine.comeneventsbioplasticsaward2013.php more than 350 participants from 215 companies caught up on the latest discussions, developments and progress in the bioplastics industry during the 8th european bioplastics conference. once more, the leading european event for the bioplastics industry provided excellent opportunities for networking, knowledge exchange and business contacts. 86 percent of the participants came from europe, 8 percent from north america and south america, and the majority of the remaining 6 percent from asia. a special thank you to our sponsors for a great conferencebioamber, innovia, wacker, basf, corbion purac, erema, sulzer chemtech. images of the conference are available athttpen.europeanbioplastics.orgpresspresspictureseventsactivities2 more information on the recent market data update info visuals is available athttpen.europeanbioplastics.orgpresspresspictureslabellinglogoscharts the conference proceedings download link will shortly be available for purchase herehttpen.europeanbioplastics.orgconference speakersguido axmann thema 1, lars börger basf, eugenio bora conai, benjamin brehmer evonic industries, françois de bie european bioplastics, corbion purac, sicco de vos corbion purac, sam deconinck ows, bruno de wilde ows, antonio dobon lopez itene, hansjosef endres ifbb university of applied arts hannover, bob engle metabolix, stefano facco novamont, horst fehrenbach ifeu institut, matthias finkbeiner technical university berlin, máire geogheganquinn european commission, rolf hogan roundtable on sustainable biomaterials, rainer hagen uhde inventafischer, yvonne henkel association of organic food processors, nathan kemeling avantium, jo kockelkoren reverdia, gérard liraut renault, beatriz luz braskem, marco meneghetti api, petra michiels vinçotte, isao noda meredian, paul pereira meredian, babette pettersen bioamber, janez potonik european commission, emmanuel rapendy sulzer chemtech, paolo rossi dsm, tanja siebert fraunhofer ivv, jenny waltherthoß wwf, james h. wang kimberlyclark,, ralph weishaupt association of organic food processors, thomas werner dupont, dieter wierspecker schüco international, gottfried h. sodeck vogelbusch, matthias spoettle ecofys, michaela steng arkema, eamonn tighe natureworks, beate treffler clariant, céline verrat ccp composites, hasso von pogrell european bioplastics exhibitorsapi, basf, bioamber, biotec, corbion purac, dechema, din certco, dupont, erema, fkur, agency for renewable recources, futorganic, gala, ifbb university of applied arts hannover, ikt, innovia films, jinhui zhgandong high technology, kaneka, limagrain, meredian, natureworks, nissan chemical industries, ngr, nordson bkg, novamont, organic waste systems, roquette, showa denko europe, vinçotte, wacker.  european bioplastics is the european association representing the interests of the industry along the complete bioplastics&lsquo value chain. its members produce, refine and distribute bioplastics i.e. plastics that are either biobased, compostable, or both. more information is available at www.europeanbioplastics.org. press contactkristybarbara lange, head communication, european bioplastics, marienstr. 1920, 10117 berlin, phone 49 0 30 28482 356, fax 49 0 30 284 82 359, presse@europeanbioplastics.org  link httpen.europeanbioplastics.orgwpcontentuploads201312eubp8thconf131212eng.pdf