Bioc­har com­bi­nes ent­repre­neurs­hip and sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty

Erk­ki Kuk­ko­nen and Niko Salo­vaa­ra are impro­ving the world one wil­low at a time.

If someo­ne told you that ordi­na­ry wil­low could be the solu­tion to car­bon seque­stra­tion, would you belie­ve them? Well, belie­ve it. Erk­ki Kuk­ko­nen and Niko Salo­vaa­ra, who are stu­dying to beco­me fore­stry engi­neers, have refi­ned the idea into a com­pa­ny and foun­ded Kare­lian Paju Oy.

Kuk­ko­nen and Salo­vaa­ra, who are in their fourth year at Kare­lia Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sciences, had alrea­dy spent a good deal of time in the career world befo­re switc­hing fields: Salo­vaa­ra 15 years in healthca­re, Kuk­ko­nen 20 years in manu­fac­tu­ring. At some point, they both star­ted to think that they had seen enough, and it was time to stu­dy again.

During stu­dies, the idea of star­ting their own busi­ness was born, based on mutual inte­rest in growing wil­low for ener­gy pro­duc­tion. Wil­low tur­ned out to be a dif­ficult crop to grow, but the duo soon disco­ve­red a new and bet­ter use for it; wil­low pro­vi­des an excel­lent raw mate­rial for bioc­har pro­duc­tion. 

Wil­low is known as a high qua­li­ty bioc­har feeds­tock, which att­rac­ted the com­pa­ny to turn its focus to bioc­har. Bioc­har pro­duc­tion has good busi­ness poten­tial, but equal­ly impor­tant is its link to sus­tai­nable deve­lop­ment and cli­ma­te work.

This is an action in line with our values and somet­hing we can stand behind

–This is an action in line with our values and somet­hing we can stand behind, Salo­vaa­ra sums up.

As a first step, they par­tici­pa­ted in the Start Me Up busi­ness idea com­pe­ti­tion orga­ni­sed by Busi­ness Joen­suu in 2022, whe­re their pro­ject won a stu­dent prize. The recog­ni­tion brought cre­di­bi­li­ty and pro­ved that the idea had poten­tial.

From fil­ters to pig­ment

Bioc­har is a mate­rial that is pro­duced from, for example, wood or plant was­te by hea­ting them wit­hout oxy­gen. It is rich in car­bon and has many use­ful pro­per­ties.

In par­ticu­lar, bioc­har is used to impro­ve soil qua­li­ty because it binds water and nut­rients and sto­res car­bon in the soil for long periods of time. It can also be used in fil­ters to puri­fy water and air, and can be use­ful in industry and ener­gy pro­duc­tion.

Kuk­ko­nen and Salo­vaa­ra’s busi­ness idea is preci­se­ly based on the fact that bioc­har pro­ducts can sup­port long-term car­bon seque­stra­tion from the cli­ma­te. They are invol­ved in pro­jects that explo­re new ways of using bioc­har, such as in rainwa­ter treat­ment and in various growing media for plants.

Kare­lian Paju’s pro­duct ran­ge inclu­des high-qua­li­ty bioc­har pro­ducts from fine pow­der to coar­ser gra­nu­les.

The tra­di­tio­nal use of bioc­har as a soil impro­ver pro­vi­des an opti­mal nut­rient and water upta­ke sub­stra­te for plants, but Kare­lian Paju Oy is also tar­ge­ting the mar­ket for filt­ra­tion and eco­lo­gical black pig­ments.

Com­pe­ti­ti­ve advan­ta­ges inclu­de not only solid know-how but also the high car­bon con­tent and low ash con­tent of the bioc­har pro­duced by the com­pa­ny. The qua­li­ty is based on care­ful­ly selec­ted raw mate­rials.

–In our pro­ducts, the car­bon con­tent exceeds 95% and the ash con­tent remains low, around a couple of percent, says Salo­vaa­ra.

The free­dom to do things and to do it for one­self are also the best aspects of ent­repre­neurs­hip.

Help has been avai­lable

Ent­repre­neurs­hip has also brought chal­len­ges, especial­ly for stu­dents with no pre­vious ent­repre­neu­rial expe­rience. Erk­ki Kuk­ko­nen and Niko Salo­vaa­ra have had to — or have been able to — learn many ent­repre­neu­rial skills from the start, inclu­ding financial nego­tia­tions and financial mana­ge­ment. 

All this has been great­ly hel­ped by the Start coac­hing offe­red by Busi­ness Joen­suu. The coac­hing was fol­lowed by access to the busi­ness acce­le­ra­tor. Through this, impor­tant networks have also been establis­hed.

In the ear­ly sta­ges, for example, the financial issues have been a lot of work, and it has taken time to get to grips with the finances. To get fun­ding, Kuk­ko­nen and Salo­vaa­ra used a varie­ty of instru­ments, inclu­ding EU and Ely sub­si­dies, a gua­ran­tee from Finn­ve­ra and pri­va­te inves­tors.

Accor­ding to inves­tor Ant­ti Kor­ho­nen, the arri­val was an impor­tant tur­ning point, as Kor­ho­nen brought not only capi­tal but also his labour to the com­pa­ny. This has hel­ped Kuk­ko­nen and Salo­vaa­ra not only to build the com­pa­ny, but also to imple­ment lar­ger deve­lop­ment pro­jects.

Pho­ne booth as an office

Com­bi­ning stu­dies and busi­ness has not been easy, but in the begin­ning Kuk­ko­nen and Salo­vaa­ra were able to work flexibly and make use of breaks between les­sons. They even used the school’s pho­ne booths as office space befo­re they had an actual office.

The next step was big­ger when the com­pa­ny’s first major pro­jects star­ted and the com­pa­ny recei­ved Ely sup­port. In the last year of stu­dy, mana­ging sche­du­les requi­red more orga­nizing and flexi­bi­li­ty, and school had to take the back seat.

–We are trying to orga­nize the first test runs for our new equip­ment in the near futu­re, and the school isn’t cur­rent­ly the prio­ri­ty, says Kuk­ko­nen.

–But for­tu­na­te­ly, the school has also rea­lized that we are now forced to be a bit flexible about our stu­dies, Salo­vaa­ra adds.

Howe­ver, the men have gai­ned a lot of use­ful infor­ma­tion from their stu­dies, which they have been able to use in their busi­ness acti­vi­ties. Their educa­tion as fore­stry engi­neers has hel­ped them to grasp the big pic­tu­re and has, among other things, sup­por­ted the prac­tical orga­ni­sa­tion of their busi­ness. 

In addi­tion, the fore­stry engi­nee­ring stu­dies inclu­ded ent­repre­neurs­hip cour­ses, which pro­vi­ded the men with the basic know­led­ge and skills to start a busi­ness.

Both ent­repre­neurs take great pri­de in the fact that their busi­ness not only offers a pro­fi­table ear­ning logic, but also sup­ports sus­tai­nable deve­lop­ment and cont­ri­bu­tes to the fight against cli­ma­te chan­ge.

First Fin­land, then Euro­pe

Kuk­ko­nen and Salo­vaa­ra belie­ve that their big­gest succes­ses are still to come. The com­pa­ny’s deve­lop­ment is well underway and the first equip­ment for full-sca­le pro­duc­tion is due to be com­mis­sio­ned soon.

Kuk­ko­nen and Salo­vaa­ra will focus on star­ting up pro­duc­tion in Fin­land, but the aim is to sca­le up and beco­me a major player in both quan­ti­ty and qua­li­ty, both in Fin­land and Euro­pe. The need for car­bon cap­tu­re is growing rapid­ly to miti­ga­te cli­ma­te chan­ge — especial­ly as the latest mea­su­re­ments show that car­bon dioxi­de emis­sions have risen to record levels.

Whi­le the Euro­pean mar­ket offers great poten­tial for expan­sion, over­seas expan­sion is not yet a rea­li­ty. Demand for bioc­har is growing and inter­na­tio­nal tra­ding plat­forms are on the horizon. 

Kuk­ko­nen and Salo­vaa­ra see inc­rea­sing the num­ber of pro­duc­tion units in the coming years as the best way to meet the needs of both industry and socie­ty to build a more sus­tai­nable futu­re.

Over the past few years, both pro­duc­tion met­hods and pro­ducts have evol­ved a lot, and deve­lop­ment work is con­ti­nuing at a rapid pace. Nevert­he­less, the cur­rent situa­tion is only an inte­rim step for the com­pa­ny.

–The focus is now on cer­tain­ty, and from here we will move on to refi­ne­ment. Once eve­ryt­hing has been tes­ted, the com­bus­tion cham­ber itself, the pyro­ly­sis cham­ber, will beco­me more clo­sed and preci­se, says Salo­vaa­ra.

Both ent­repre­neurs take great pri­de in the fact that their busi­ness not only offers a pro­fi­table ear­ning logic, but also sup­ports sus­tai­nable deve­lop­ment and cont­ri­bu­tes to the fight against cli­ma­te chan­ge.

–The free­dom to do things and to do things for one­self are also the best aspects of ent­repre­neurs­hip, says Erk­ki Kuk­ko­nen.

This mate­rial was pro­duced as part of the acti­vi­ties of the City of Joen­suu Inno­va­tion Eco­sys­tem Agree­ment (ERDF), co-fun­ded by the Euro­pean Union and the city of Joen­suu.