Parc Cataroux - the Center for Sustainable Materials is taking advantage of the inauguration of a new building to unveil an ambitious development plan

A new building (RX) is being inaugurated on Friday, October 4 by the five backers of Foncière du Centre des Matériaux Durables: Crédit Agricole Centre France, the Michelin Group, Banque des Territoires, Caisse d’Epargne Auvergne Limousin and the Puy-de-Dôme Clermont Auvergne Métropole Chamber of Trade and Industry. The 6,000 sq. m. building representing an investment of €6M will be home to innovative projects in the field of recyclable or renewable materials. The Center for Sustainable Materials is entering a new phase of its development which will see its capacity increase three-fold.

Number one priority for the Center for Sustainable Materials: acceleration.

The role of the Center for Sustainable Materials is to help its tenant start-ups achieve faster scale-up.  It offers a variety of services to help them create their industrial demonstrator more quickly, more cost-effectively and more reliably. The start-ups benefit from best-in-class industrial and technical facilities as well as access to highly specific knowhow.

The Center for Sustainable Materials is ramping up fast itself: the inauguration of building RX is the culmination of a development phase which kicked off in 2021 with the arrival of Carbios, a pioneer in the design and development of enzyme-based processes. By 2030, its capacity will have grown threefold resulting in the creation of 700 jobs and support services for about twenty start-ups in pre-industrialization phase.

A robust innovation ecosystem unrivaled in Europe

One of the Center’s main strengths - and particularities - is its community of expert partners:

• Tenant companies who have found tangible solutions to address the challenges of sustainable materials;

• Open innovation hubs offering biotech and ultimately recycling services;

• Academic partners: Clermont-Auvergne University and the French National Center for Scientific Research CNRS;

• Competitiveness clusters (Axelera, Polymeris);

• Innovation accelerators.

The Center for Sustainable Materials is an integral part of Parc Cataroux and can benefit from synergy with the Michelin Talent Campus which delivers management training and Hall 32 which offers vocational training in manufacturing. New amenities will be available from December 2025, namely the CIH offering co-working and co-living spaces and a food court in the heart of Parc Cataroux.

Three times bigger: 6 companies in 2025 and 20 in 2030

The Center for Sustainable Materials currently houses three companies. The first company to arrive - Carbios - was joined this year by Michelin Engineered Polymers which is developing ResiCare, a new generation of adhesive resins for industrial applications and by a start-up - bobine - which offers an innovative technological solution for chemical recycling.

Three new tenants will be moving into their premises in the first quarter of 2025: Capillum, which specializes in recycling hair, Numtech which helps companies reduce their environmental footprint and the Biotech Open Platform which is supported by Danone, the American startup DMB Biotechnologies, Michelin and Crédit Agricole Centre France.

A similar open platform, this time dedicated to recycling, is currently in exploration phase.

Start-ups are extremely keen to join the Center for Sustainable Materials and benefit from its facilities to develop their industrial demonstrator. The new RX building is already full and space will be made available on the Cataroux site to host around twenty positive impact projects in the field of recyclable or renewable materials by 2030.

The Center for Sustainable Materials: facts and figures

Phase 1: 2021 -2024

170 jobs created

3 companies on site: CARBIOS, Michelin Engineered Polymers (ResiCare) and bobine.

20,000 sq. m. of industrial facilities.

€22M in investment (€6M for building RX) provided by the five backers of Foncière du Centre des Matériaux Durables: Crédit Agricole Centre France (36%), Michelin Group (22%), Banque des Territoires (22%), Caisse d’Epargne Auvergne Limousin (14%) and Puy-de-Dôme Clermont Auvergne Métropole Chamber of Trade and Industry (6%).

Phase 2: 2025 - 2030

700 jobs in the final phase

Around 20 start-ups hosted including 3 new companies in H1 2025. Capillum, NUMTECH, Biotech Open Platform

More than 50,000 sq. m. of industrial facilities.

To find out more, le centre des matériaux durables

Portrait of the 6 tenant companies in 2025

Carbios is a biotech company which develops and manufactures biological solutions to give plastics and textiles a new lease of life.  Mimicking natural processes, Carbios uses enzymes to break down plastics with the aim of reducing plastic and textile pollution and speeding up the transition to a circular economy.

Michelin Engineered Polymers develops and sells specialist innovative resins under the ResiCare brand. Initially developed for use in the tire industry, these non-toxic* high-performance adhesives are suitable for a range of industrial applications: plywood, insulating materials, abrasives and composites. *free from Substances of Very High Concern according to the definition of the European Chemicals Agency. 

A recent Cleantech startup, bobine is arriving on the plastic chemical recycling market with a disruptive innovation which facilitates the production of virgin polymers from currently non-recyclable plastic waste. This technology, which utilizes heterogeneous catalysis and electromagnetic induction, allows for the large-scale production of olefins (ethylene, propylene) from waste without the need for a steam cracker. The Environmental and Life Cycle Analysis gains represent a significant opportunity for the plastic recycling sector, particularly concerning recycled plastics suitable for food-grade components.

Capillum offers an environmentally-friendly solution to reduce waste by recycling hair for new applications. The company has become the benchmark for hair recycling.

The hair collected is recycled for:

• Agriculture with CAPINEA® natural mulch;

• decontamination of ports and oceans with CAPICLEAN® absorbent;

• medical research where the keratin is extracted from the hair for use in skin treatments.

Numtech can capitalize on nearly 25 years’ experience in atmospheric modeling and air quality management to offer innovative solutions for evaluating and reducing the environmental footprint of its customers. The company has broadened its portfolio of services to include carbon footprint audits, Life-cycle Analysis (LCA) to evaluate impacts from cradle to grave and guidance in implementing the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.

The Biotech Open Platform

The Biotech Open Platform is designed to facilitate the scale-up of advanced fermentation processes, in particular precision fermentation, a revolutionary biotech process for producing bio-based materials and ingredients.

The creation of the Biotech Open Platform was announced in June 2024 and the first phase of development is scheduled for 2025. It is the fruit of collaboration between four partners - Danone, Michelin, American start-up DMC Biotechnologies and Crédit Agricole Centre France - and represents an investment to the tune of €16M. Furthermore, the Biotech Open Platform can count on the support of a number of public and private sector stakeholders: Clermont-Auvergne University, the Greentech company, the Region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes via the ERDF and Clermont Auvergne Metropolitan Area.

About Parc Cataroux

The Center for Sustainable Materials is part of Parc Cataroux, a €300M one-of-a-kind redevelopment project in Europe. Parc Cataroux upholds the strong tradition of innovation of Michelin’s Cataroux site with a particular focus on sustainability. Backed by a strong and dynamic network, it is a booster for the attractiveness of the area.

Parc Cataroux has four complementary pillars:

• The Center for Sustainable Materials;

• The Skills Center including the Talent Campus, the Michelin Group’s corporate university opened in 2022 and Hall 32, a vocational training center for industry founded in 2019 by a consortium of companies including Michelin in collaboration with the French Ministry of Education.

• The Collaborative Innovation Hub (CIH), due to open at the end of 2025, one of the largest co-working and co-living spaces in Europe with room for 2,500 people a day.

• Les Pistes, a new 10-hectare district including Michelin’s former test tracks which will be home to cultural and community amenities. It is scheduled for delivery in 2028.

Visuals: https://contentcenter.michelin.com:443/portal/shared-board/e382a5bf-40ca-446d-999d-155a84eb110e