The Foundation Industries Sustainability Consortium (FISC) will support the scale-up of sustainable technologies for the UK’s essential materials, including glass.
FISC is made up organisations from the glass, cement, metal, ceramic, paper, polymer and chemical industries.
These include Glass Futures, CPI, Lucideon, Materials Processing Institute and the Henry Royce Institute.
The products made from these materials are essential to our everyday lives, but together, they are responsible for approximately 10% of the world’s CO2 emissions.
FISC plans to deliver sustainable solutions that will help to transform these essential industries.
FISC’s first project is the Economic Materials Innovation for the Sustainable and Efficient Use of Resources (EconoMISER). It is funded by Innovate UK as part of the Transforming Foundation Industries (TFI) Challenge and builds on the existing capability of the partners.
This £19.5 million project will upgrade five facilities across the UK by providing key infrastructure to demonstrate low carbon technologies at scale.
Teams of industry fellows and application scientists are now initiating projects across the foundation industries network.
Graham Hillier, FISC and EconoMISER Project Chair, said: “All of the centres are well established in their own right and support innovation in their own industries.
"We felt that by working together on cross cutting themes that affect the whole of the foundation industries, there was an opportunity to combine our capabilities in ways that can identify and transfer best practice between the centres and, more importantly, into manufacturing plants and supply chains to enhance the UK’s position economically, environmentally and socially.”
The UK foundation industries face a set of challenges, which include: using more scrap materials, developing more sustainable manufacturing routes, improving the efficiency of manufacturing, and increasing UK production so it is less reliant on imports.
Dr Ben Walsh, Deputy Director of TFI at Innovate UK said: “FISC is open to all in the industry, and we welcome them to engage and plan projects that will drive the foundation industries forward. FISC will provide support through access to the equipment and services of its members.
“The depth of expertise across a wide range of innovation activities means that FISC can bring together unparalleled expertise that can help its partners reach practical solutions more quickly and at lower cost than if each partner worked independently.”
The consortium will lead projects based on six themes: alternative fuels, digital sensing, process optimisation, sustainable materials, circular economy, and training and skills.
