Enzymes for consumer products to achieve climate neutrality

Abstract Today, the chemosphere’s and biosphere’s compositions of the planet are changing faster than experienced during the past thousand years. CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion are rising dramatically, including those from processing, manufacturing and consuming everyday products; this rate of greenhouse gas emission (36.2 gigatons accumulated in 2022) is raising global temperatures and destabilizing the climate, which is one of the most influential forces on our planet. As our world warms up, our climate will enter a period of constant turbulence, affecting more than 85% of our ecosystems, including the delicate web of life on these systems, and impacting socioeconomic networks. How do we deal with the green transition to minimize climate change and its impacts while we are facing these new realities? One of the solutions is to use renewable natural resources. Indeed, nature itself, through the working parts of its living systems, the enzymes, can significantly contribute to achieve climate neutrality and good ecological/biodiversity status. Annually they can help decreasing CO2 emissions by 1–2.5 billion-tons, carbon demand by about 200 million-tons, and chemical demand by about 90 million-tons. With current climate change goals, we review the consequences of climate change at multiple scales and how enzymes can counteract or mitigate them. We then focus on how they mobilize sustainable and greener innovations in consumer products that have a high contribution to global carbon emissions. Finally, key innovations and challenges to be solved at the enzyme and product levels are discussed.

Keywords

Subject (DDC)

600 - Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften

Project

Event

Exhibition start date

Exhibition end date

Conference start date

Conference end date

Date of the last check

ISBN

ISSN

2634-4068

Language

English

Created during FHNW affiliation

Yes

Strategic action fields FHNW

Publication status

Published

Review

Peer review of the complete publication

Open access category

Gold

License

Citation

MOLINA-ESPEJA, Patricia, Julia SANZ-APARICIO, Peter N. GOLYSHIN, Ana ROBLES-MARTÍN, Víctor GUALLAR, Fabrizio BELTRAMETTI, Markus MÜLLER, Michail M. YAKIMOV, Jan MODREGGER, Moniec VAN LOGCHEM, Philippe CORVINI, Patrick SHAHGALDIAN, Christian DEGERING, Susanne WIELAND, Anne TIMM, Carla C. C. R. DE CARVALHO, Ilaria RE, Sara DANIOTTI, Stephan THIES, Karl-Erich JAEGER, Jennifer CHOW, Wolfgang R. STREIT, Roland LOTTENBACH, Rainer RÖSCH, Nazanin ANSARI und Manuel FERRER, 2023. Enzymes for consumer products to achieve climate neutrality. Oxford Open Climate Change. 15 März 2023. Bd. 3, Nr. 1. DOI 10.1093/oxfclm/kgad003. Verfügbar unter: https://doi.org/10.26041/fhnw-5303

Full item page