Bioplastics innovation lags, despite public sentiment: Clarivate
Despite growing consumer awareness of the need to radically change our approach to plastic usage and disposal, and bioplastics being a potential solution, innovation in the sector is lagging behind, according to Clarivate Analytics.
In the days leading up to World IP Day—taking place on Sunday, April 26 with the theme of “Innovate for a Green Future”—Clarivate released a report focused on innovation in bioplastics.
Unfortunately, while bioplastics have emerged as one of the potential solutions to a more sustainable future, from a patented invention perspective, it’s not fast-growing. A plastic material is defined as a bioplastic if it is either biobased, biodegradable, or features both properties.
Bioplastics have been around for more than a hundred years—the first bioplastic was invented in the late 19th century by Alexander Parkes. However, the expensive and easily-breakable material didn’t gain public acceptance and, ever since, has developed in the shadow of the plastics industry.
The report, “ From the Plastics Present to a Sustainable Future”, said that patent volume increased in bioplastics packaging for food, beverage and cosmetics sectors between 58% and 70% from 2012 to 2017.
This simply kept pace with overall patent volumes that similarly grew 70% over the same period, according to the Derwent World Patents IndexTM (DWPI). Derwent is a Clarivate company.
“Indeed, these growth trajectories show that a focus on the highest consumer impact and sales volumes, and thereby the waste streams that end up in the environment, ie food, beverage and cosmetics, are below the baseline. Arguably, this means that real growth is not occurring at all,” warned Clarivate.
An early stage of development
Global bioplastics production today (2.11 million tonnes in 2019) is just a fraction compared to the more than 359 million tonnes of plastic produced annually. Growth of bioplastics is expected to be modest, reaching 2.43 million tonnes in 2024, which is still less than 1% of current annual plastics production.
At its early development stage, the bioplastics packaging sector has no dominant company or entity, with 40% of all inventions are held by organisational applicants with just a single invention; less than a tenth of applicants hold ten or more inventions.
Out of the three sectors mentioned above, food packaging is the most active and is increasing most quickly. Almost 60% of biodegradable/compostable or bio-derived food packaging inventions have been filed since 2015, compared to almost 40% for cosmetics packaging and 55% for beverage packaging.
“If bioplastic packaging for fast-moving consumer products overall is not out-pacing general innovation trends, innovation focused on cosmetics uses is particularly poorly covered,” said Clarivate.
In cosmetics packaging, Clarivate found just 137 inventions globally between 2012 and 2017, new filing rates of between nine and 29 inventions per year and no sign of an uptick or acceleration in inventive output. Since 2012, 1,510 inventions have been filed for bioplastic food packaging.
Coffee is key
Instead of creating a list of top patent assignees, Clarivate reviewed the top 50 (by volume) entities in the dataset by their rank in terms of the average age of activity and by the average invention strength, creating a grid in terms of stronger and weaker, younger and older portfolios.
Older and stronger portfolios map closely to the way the market is operating at the moment. Currently, coffee-specific entities Lavazza, Starbucks, Nestlé Jacobs Douwe Egbert, K-Fee and illy dominate the bioderived/biodegradable fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) packaging sector.
“This is logical, as coffee capsules represent a significant waste challenge. They are almost by definition single-use items,” added the report.
Stronger but younger portfolios represent potential disruption and change to the current market. Two notable firms here are Footprint, an Arizona, US startup founded in 2013 focused on sustainable packaging and CHOCAL Aluminumverpackungen, a family-run firm based near Stuttgart, Germany and traditionally specialising in aluminium foil packaging for chocolate.
Mainland Chinese and UK universities are included in the ‘potentially disruptive’ quadrant, as well as Chinese specialist manufacturing and materials science firms, indicating that these entities are important in the development cycle, said Clarivate.
“Our analysis shows that the inventive peak is currently occurring within the materials and equipment supply sector—firms such as Toray and BASF—with a secondary peak in the packaging manufacturers,” added the report.
Reluctance to commit
Clarivate’s trademark data suggests that companies are still slow to commit to switching to recyclable and biodegradable products.
The term ‘plastics’ has appeared in ever-increasing numbers in trademark applications filed each year at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), while only a very small number of applications describe their product as biodegradable or recyclable.
Clarivate concluded: “Tellingly, our trademark data underscores how the commercial proposition of bioplastics is not yet attractive. With no dominant player at present, the bioplastics market is still very much up for grabs.”
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