Plastic. Climate. Future.

The energy transition isn’t only about generating renewable energy. It’s also about how we transport and distribute that energy — and the materials that make this infrastructure possible.
In this episode, we sit down with Dr.Matthias Pursch from Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics to explore the often invisible role advanced materials play in the infrastructure around us.
We discuss:
How material innovation is enabling high-voltage and HVDC cableshigh-voltage power cables, including HVDC systems, to transport electricity over long distances
Why these technologies are increasingly important as we connect renewable energy generation to the grid
How advanced materials are helping improve district heating infrastructure
The role of recycled and bio-based feedstocksThe role of post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials and bio-circular feedstocks, and the challenge of combining circularity with demanding technical performance
Why collaboration across the value chain is essential to bring new solutions into real-world infrastructure
Many of these materials remain almost invisible in our everyday lives — yet they play an essential role in making our energy systems more efficient, durable and ready for the future.
🎧 Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts!

New episode of our series with Plastics Europe Deutschland, exploring “What HighTech is made of – Plastics as the Enablers of German Innovation Goals,” is live.
Episode 2: Rethinking How We Innovate Materials
How do we turn promising material ideas into solutions that actually work at industrial scale — and can we do it faster?
In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Jürgen Stebani, founder and CEO of Polymaterials, to explore how material innovation itself is changing.
We discuss:
How to accelerate material development and move from ideas to industrial solutions faster
How to bridge the gap between startups, research and established industry
How AI, digitalization and data are changing the way new compounds and materials are developed
What Germany needs to remain competitive as a location for material innovation
Why speed, experimentation and a willingness to take risks matter for the next generation of materials
Because ultimately, innovation isn’t only about discovering new materials. It’s also about rethinking how we develop them and bring them into industry.
Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts!

Germany’s future technologies share one common denominator: plastics. In our series with Plastics Europe Deutschland, we talk to the people turning that into solutions — from material volume to material competence, the core idea behind The Plastic Shift.
For our first company conversation, we sit down with Daniel Koch from LyondellBasell to look at what circularity means when it moves beyond the lab and into industrial reality.
At LyondellBasell’s Wesseling site, the company is building its first industrial-scale MoReTec plant, designed to turn difficult-to-recycle mixed plastic waste into feedstock for new polymers.
We talk about what it really takes to bring circularity to industrial scale — from transforming existing production sites and integrating new technologies into established operations, to creating the conditions that allow these investments to succeed. And we explore why the transition will depend not only on new technology, but also on infrastructure, expertise, regulation and demand.
As Daniel puts it:
“Circularity is not really only a technology question.”
And perhaps that is the bigger story: transforming the plastics industry doesn’t necessarily mean starting again from scratch. It can also mean using the infrastructure, expertise and people we already have to build something new.
This is the first episode in our new mini-series exploring the innovative spirit of Germany’s plastics and polymer industry — and the people turning transformation into industrial reality.
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Germany doesn't have an ideas problem.

Eight years of shrinking industrial production. Christine Bunte, Managing Director of Plastics Europe Deutschland, calls it what it is: not an economic dip, but a structural crisis.

And yet — the universities are excellent. The research is excellent. The ideas are there. What's missing is the step from idea to industrial scale.

“We have lost speed in making these ideas industrial products and bringing them to industrial scale. That is often the step that's missing.”

So Plastics Europe Deutschland is turning the perspective around: from material volume to material competence. Plastics not as the villain, but as the invisible key technology behind Germany's future industries.

From today, our series “What Hightech Is Made Of” — following the seven fields of Germany's Hightech-Agenda, with the people actually building the solutions. Every Tuesday and Thursday, through to the innovation press conference in Berlin on 11 September.

Here a short preview of what’s coming:
- How mixed plastic waste becomes raw material again - at industrial scale, inside a working chemical park.
- Why finding the right formulation used to take months and now takes minutes.
- What's inside a power cable and why it decides how much wind energy actually arrives.
- Why no electric car moves without flame retardants.
🎧 Listen now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

What started as an effort to create a better alternative to conventional plastic straws led to something nobody expected.
In this episode, we speak with Brad Laporte and Michael Winters from WinCup, the team behind PHADE®—a PHA-based material designed to biodegrade in environments where conventional plastics persist. Along the way, they discovered an entirely unexpected application: helping researchers restore coral reefs by protecting young corals during their most vulnerable stage.
Together, we discuss:
- How bacteria can produce the next generation of plastics
- Why they chose PHA over paper straws
- The surprising connection between biodegradable plastics and coral restoration
- What it takes to bring a new material from the lab to billions of products
- Why science, certification, and performance matter in building trust
This is a fascinating conversation about material innovation, unexpected discoveries, and how one idea can solve problems far beyond its original purpose.
🎧 Listen now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!