Circular Economy

The Tees Valley demonstrates all the major elements of the circular economy, from recycling steel from decommissioned oil platforms to using CO2 from industry for soft drinks, from energy from waste in industrial processes to anaerobic digestion using industrial effluents. With opportunities to use large-scale renewable energy to recover and potentially recycle CO2 from industry via carbon capture, utilisation and storage development, the region is at the forefront of deploying these innovative concepts to tackle climate change.

Bio-Energy

The Tees Valley is home to the largest concentration of bio-based process industry in the UK. With its heritage of developing products and processes using waste-based feedstocks or aimed at the bioeconomy, the Tees Valley is the ideal location for innovative developments in this sector

MGT is the largest dedicated biomass power plant in the world,
Greenergy is Europe’s largest manufacturer of waste-based biodiesel, has the UK’s biggest biodiesel refinery on Teesside
Ensus, at Wilton International, operates one of the largest production plants for bioethanol and sustainable animal feed in Europe
CF Fertilisers is an integrated production and storage facility, manufacturing chemicals, utilities and Ammonium Nitrate fertiliser
Anglo American’s new Polyhalite mine, with the project’s Materials Handling Facility also based at Wilton

Biotechnology

Experience with bio-based manufacture in the Tees Valley led to the development of meat-free protein Quorn, whose biggest production facility sits in the region.

More recently there has been significant investment in biotechnology, with CPI and FUJIFILM Diosynth employing hundreds of biotechnologists here using state-of-the-art processes to make valuable products, including the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine

Circular Economy & Bio-energy