10146518BIOPACK: Plant-based high-performance colourants and coatings to enable fully sustainable, bio-based packagingActiveCollaborative R&DInnovate UK**Colourants** make up the dyes, pigments and coatings that are found in almost every part of our homes and daily lives. This massive, £38bn global industry touches on a wide range of products, including cosmetics, textiles, paints, and packaging, but comes at an **extraordinary social and environmental cost**. Produced using a wide range of mined metals, minerals, synthetic microplastics and petrochemical products, colourants are associated with huge greenhouse gas emissions (up to **27 kg CO2e / kg of synthetic dye**), destructive and unethical mining practices, and cause **long-term damage** to the environment, biodiversity and human health. Many colourants are **impossible to recycle**, take hundreds of years to biodegrade, and cannot be sourced renewably. In short, **_many would simply never have been approved for sale if invented today_.** Inspired by the physical principles responsible for some of nature's most vivid colours, and spun out of **world-leading research** at the University of Cambridge, Sparxell has developed the **world's first plant-based, bio-inspired colourants** to rival the performance of today's state-of-the-art. Our **multi-award winning, patent-protected technology** transforms fully renewable natural cellulose feedstocks into a near limitless range of vivid, lustrous and long-lasting pigments and foils. These are **100% safe, biodegradable, petrochemical-free**, and have a carbon footprint at least **85% lower** than synthetic alternatives. The packaging sector's transition to sustainable alternatives offers a massive opportunity for plant-based colourants in a global paper packaging market worth £265bn. In partnership with the UKs **Manufacturing Technology Centre** and **Pulpex** (a world-class innovator in sustainable paper-based packaging), this project will develop new methods for production, and will demonstrate the viable application of fully sustainable, bio-derived Sparxell pigments, foils and inks to a range of sustainable packaging materials. Engagement of major global brands as end-users will accelerate our route-to-market, positioning the UK as a leader in the new circular bioeconomy.