CANADIAN BIOECONOMY CONFERENCE

1ST ANNUAL

CANADIAN BIOECONOMY The Canadian Renewable Fuels Association (CRFA) held its first Annual Canadian Bioeconomy Conference at the beginning of December in Toronto, Ontario. The event boasted three days of talks, panels, and lectures on the future of renewable energy in North America and beyond. Written by Michael Anjos

The conference ran from the 1st to the 3rd of December, 2014 and featured talks from both national and international industry leaders. Founded in 1984, CRFA’s focus is on advancing the use of value-added products made from renewable resources through consumer awareness and government liaison activities. OPENING TOURS The first day of the conference offered two optional industry tours for those interested in seeing biofuel research and production 60 | SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE

at work in Ontario. The first was a tour of the BIOX Corporation (a biodiesel production facility), and the second was a tour of the Bioproducts Discovery & Development Centre (BDDC). The BDDC tour explored the University of Guelph’s biofuel focused interdisciplinary centre and showcased the facility’s cutting edge equipment and frontier research in the understanding of processing and commercialising biofuel. Home to seven stateof-the-art laboratories, each dedicated to research in the area of bio-based materials,