Business as usual? Not for Gunter Pauli, advocate for the Blue Economy, former CEO of Ecover, children’s author, father of six and ‘world citizen’. In an interview at the recent EcoAP forum at the Hannover-Messe, Mr Pauli shares his vision for a better world through doing better business.

A project to explore the possibilities of biorefining – or the processing of biomass into higher value materials – has been recognised by the European Commission's RegioStars 2014 award scheme. The BEACON project, a partnership between three Welsh universities (Aberystwyth, Bangor and Swansea), was the winner in the “Sustainable Growth” category of the RegioStars Awards, which were presented in a ceremony in Brussels at the end of March.

People have been making paper in one form or another for at least 2000 years, and the art of paper-making has been through several technological shifts, most notably the switch from cotton and linen fibres as a raw material to wood pulp, a development that took place in the mid-nineteenth century. Recently, another approach has emerged – paper made from stone.