The Danish government has facilitated a business-led partnership to promote environmentally-friendly technologies. The purpose is to develop a binding partnership, pooling the various skills from the private sector to develop new solutions in areas with a significant environmental and commercial perspective. One of the innovation partnerships addresses the manure challenges from meat production in highly inhabited areas.

With the action plan for the promotion of environmentally-effective technologies, the Danish government has taken the initiative to build partnerships involving companies, knowledge institutions and government institutions in five selected areas. Industrial biotechnology is one of the five areas.

In 2006, a range of leading Danish companies e.g. Novozymes, Kemira, Grundfos, Xergi and Samson Bismatech have entered into an innovative industrial biotechnology partnership with the aim of making manure a commercially-attractive product, provided that manure is not perceived as a waste product but a raw material.

Central for the project is that the partnership would likely never have been realised had it not been for the facilitating role of the Danish government. Key government authorities have been involved in setting up the partnership by inviting the private sector to collaborate and act as secretariat for the partnership.

For new manure technology to be profitable, the regulation must be changed from standards based on the relation between the number of animals and square meters of land, to standards based on discharge from animals. In a new plan for green agricultural and food production, the Danish government has announced a new regulation based on standards of discharge. Part of the knowledge for such a new regulation comes from the work in the innovation partnership, which serves to illustrate how the regulating authority may obtain necessary knowledge for smart regulation from dialogue with the private sector.

Source: FORA, 2009

For more details on the case, contact FORA at FORA@newnatureofinnovation.org.