Tom van Aken, Avantium NV | Notable Leaders in Sustainability 2023

Tom van Aken is a chemist by trade. He earned his master's degree in chemistry from the Utrecht University then joined DSM Fine Chemicals Inc., "which was, at the time, a chemicals company that focused … on petrochemicals," he said, adding that the move to Avantium NV was "essentially a move to another chemicals company."

Van Aken was the vice president of business development from 2002-04 and vice president of global marketing and sales from 2004-05 before becoming CEO of the Amsterdam-based biotechnology company — his first role in plastics.

"Avantium was launched as a spinoff of Royal Dutch Shell, and we were really a high-speed experimentation company for chemistry. After I became CEO, we changed our focus, divested our other businesses in pharmaceuticals to narrow our focus to renewable chemistry technologies, and that's how we got to where we are today," the CEO said.

His interest has been on the commercial side of chemistry and "how you can use it to bring ideas to life," van Aken said.

"From a chemistry perspective, we were developing better catalysts for the industry — we started examining this with a focus on oil and then had the idea to look at other feedstocks because of the scarcity of petroleum," he said. "We started looking at plant-based sugars to develop biofuels, and we eventually settled on developing higher-value products because much of the chemical industry is involved in making materials. That's how we really got into bioplastics, and now, we're even more expert at developing circular solutions in plastics and the mission now includes sustainability."

Avantium's lead product, PEF, is a plant-based, recyclable and degradable plastic material "with a powerful combination of environmental and performance features," according to its website. "PEF has huge potential in the packaging, textiles and film sectors, growing markets worth over $200 billion," the company added.

The mission of Avantium is to "develop sustainable plastics devoid of fossil fuels," and that's what drives van Aken on a daily basis.

"In a nutshell, our core focus is to manufacture 100 percent plant-based plastics made of PEF from sugar and feedstocks. We've proven that we can do it with a demonstration plant, and next year we expect to commercialize that process with our first flagship plant for FDCA, the key building block of the 100 percent plant-based and fully recyclable polymer PEF," he said. "The end product is sustainable by design, but in my time as CEO, we have pushed to ensure that the entire process is fully circular."

Beyond his role as CEO, van Aken said he makes sustainable life choices and encourages company employees to do the same.

"It's the core of Avantium and the main driver for myself and our employees. Under my leadership, we have developed several companywide initiatives intended to drive sustainability in our work and our communities, including the development and implementation of our sustainability strategy Chain Reaction 2030, committing Avantium to a series of goals and targets where it has the greatest impact on social and environmental issues," he said. "Last year, we also started the Avantium Footprint Challenge, [a] sustainability competition with the goal to reduce our personal and the company's environmental footprint."

Van Aken said the most important thing the plastics industry could do is "embrace change."

"We speak to potential partners and brand owners every week, and everyone agrees there is a problem. The disagreement seems to be the issue of timing: How soon should companies start to make this transition? And is it too soon? I can say that it's certainly not too soon to start making the transition now, and if we wait too long, it may be too late," he said. "We are in the middle of a climate emergency, and without collaboration from everyone, we won't make the necessary changes in time."

Earlier this year, van Aken spoke at the Rethinking Materials Summit in London about "the need to shift our collective mindset and focus not on recycling but rather on making an entire materials transition in order to avoid reaching a point of no return with our climate."

"Only focusing on recycling is never going to be enough," he said at the summit. "There needs to be renewable carbon within the system. If it's only bio, and not circular, that isn't going to work either. We need to have both renewable feedstocks and make sure it's circular."

Van Aken is a board member of ChemistryNL's Topteam, which "executes the mission-driven top sector and innovation policy of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate." He is also involved with Go-Chem, which sponsors projects between private companies and knowledge institutes in sustainable chemistry, as chairman of the board; the Royal Association of the Dutch Chemical Industry; the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities; and the Netherlands Academy of Engineering.

"I think I am at the right place at the moment and thoroughly [enjoy] my work at Avantium. We have an excellent team, and it's a super exciting phase of the company," van Aken said. "In the future, I hope to be in a position where I can help entrepreneurs to build new businesses and invest in exciting startups that have the potential and ambition to make an impact on hard-to-decarbonize and -defossilize industries."