Bio-based binders: assessing innovation for real-world use

Name: Bio-based binders: assessing innovation for real-world use
Start: 2026-10-29T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-10-29T00:00:00Z
Location: Online

Webinar

Date & Time

29 October 2026
13:00 – 14:30 GMT (16:00 – 17:30 EAT)

Location

Online

Price

Free

Book a Place

Explore how emerging bio-based construction materials move from innovation to practical adoption. This webinar supports the Institution’s Pan-African Structural Engineering Knowledge Partnership.

The session will explore product development, market validation, followed by certification and adoption challenges, then use a case study to examine how emerging materials are assessed, including specification, validation, insurance and risk.

Reasons to attend

By the end of this webinar, attendees will be able to:  

Examine an innovation development and market validation journey, from academia to business.
Explore and compare the certification journey and challenges for bio-based construction materials in African contexts, Europe, and Middle East.
Distinguish the three questions any approval system must answer - design basis, market access and constancy of performance - and identify the evidence each requires, including durability, moisture and mechanic behaviour where these govern.
Follow a real-life case study from laboratory research to built projects, including the characteristics of the product and its behaviour under moisture, and relate this to the project stages at which a material must be specified.
Identify key adoption barriers for innovative low-carbon materials, including specification confidence, performance validation, insurance and the professional judgement needed to manage risk. 
Understand how the engineering community evaluates and accepts new products, including the technical evidence, performance data and assurance information needed to build confidence.

Speakers

Dr. Gnanli Landrou is a co-founder of Oxara. As a native Togolese growing up in a clay house, he now challenges the status quo in the construction industry with his ETH spin-off Oxara. With the vision to enable sustainable construction and social affordable housing in Africa and the rest of the world, Dr Landrou was recipient of the ETH Silver Medal, named Forbes U30 in 2019 and received several awards, prizes and grants to accelerate commercialisation of its cement-free binder technology. He co-founded the African Student Association in Zurich to create a safety and gathering place for the African diaspora studying at ETH Zurich, is an External Advisor to ETH4D and a Jury member of the selective ETH grant project Social Pioneer Fellowship.

Simone is Professor of Sustainable Concrete and Structural Engineering at OST – Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences, where she works on low-carbon binders and earth-based materials and heads a materials testing laboratory. In Switzerland she sits on several SIA standards commissions and supports the testing and certification of new construction products, including the development of guidelines for earth-based materials intended to underpin future national standards. Across several African regions she works on applied research, curriculum development and innovation collaboration, supporting entrepreneurs bringing low-carbon construction materials from development into commercial use.

Contact

Email - [email protected]