The journey to replace fossil-based coatings in paper and board packaging is well underway. As LIFE WOODMER project completes its first full reporting period, we look back at fourteen months of progress through hard work, new learnings and excitement about the potential of our product. With the baselines set, permits secured, an advanced WOODMER® Seal formulation proven together with a manufacturer, we have reached significant milestones and earned recognition by the industry. Looking ahead, we are ready to kick-off construction of the plant and enable demonstrations on industrial scale.
It has been just over a year since we gathered in Stockholm for the internal kick-off of LIFE WOODMER on 10 June 2025 — the start of a project co-funded by the EU LIFE Programme to scale up Ecohelix’s process for producing WOODMER® biopolymer from an under-used pulp-mill side stream at Domsjö Fabriker. The goal is as concrete as it is ambitious: replace fossil- and food-based polymers, including hazardous PFAS chemicals, in paper and board packaging with a wood-derived alternative.
As Reporting Period 1 closed in July 2026, this is a good moment to share what the year actually looked like on the ground: an environmental permit process (approved), baseline studies and detailed needs assessments for the WOODMER® Seal and the laboratory’s product development and quality assurance capacity, an initial procurement and detailed plant designs and recognition from the industry, that tells us that we are on the right track.
Clearing the way: permits and partnerships
Every demonstration-scale project starts with groundwork that rarely makes headlines but sets the stage for the rest of the project. Early in the project, we confirmed with Örnsköldsvik municipality that the environmental permit already held for our Domsjö demonstration site covers the additional activities funded under LIFE WOODMER, so no new permit process was required. Hence, a change notification was submitted and the municipality’s formal confirmation followed before the end of the year. We have signed a host-site agreement with Domsjö Fabriker covering the scale-up of WOODMER® production, giving the project a stable, long-term home that extends well beyond LIFE WOODMER’s own timeline.
Alongside the permitting work, we established the technical baselines that WP3 and WP4 now build on: laboratory capability benchmarks and the framework for collaboration with our partners, together with a shared test plan and success criteria for the demonstration phase ahead.
Improved formulation, proven in real production environment
This is the heart of the project, and the headline result of the period. In February 2026 we approved Generation 6 of the WOODMER Seal formulation — a meaningful step up in performance against the customer requirements detailed in our Book of Specification, which describes exact product requirements and standards. In June 2026, we took that formulation out of the lab and into a real production environment: the first pilot test run with a large paper and board manufacturer, run on 15 June 2026. The positive results demonstrated that WOODMER Seal Generation 6 met several of the formulation’s key performance targets. This gave us a clear validation and direction as we move forward.
Engineering complete, ready to build
Alongside the formulation work, the demonstration line itself has moved from plan to blueprint. On 14 April 2026, the Ecohelix board gave the go-ahead for the expansion of the demonstration line at Domsjö Fabriker, and detailed engineering for the expanded line has now been completed. That means the design work, equipment specification and site planning needed to build are all in place — construction itself is still to begin and will move forward through the next phase of the project, but the project now has a fully engineered plan ready to execute. It is the milestone that turns a permitted, funded, and now fully designed project into a concrete construction timeline for Work Package 3 Construction and Installation, as well as Work Package 4 Demonstration as the defining chapters ahead.
Telling the story and being recognised for it
Getting the science and the engineering right is only part of the job — so is making sure the industry knows what LIFE WOODMER is building, and why it matters. The project website went live on 5 October 2025, a full month ahead of its own deadline, and has drawn 170 visitors in its first ten months online. Over the course of the reporting period, we delivered eight communication activities and six dissemination activities, reaching an audience of roughly 7,115 LinkedIn impressions, 342 website views, ten media outlets that picked up project news, and around 1,400 participants across the events we took part in — already surpassing the project’s full-lifetime target for events and conferences, with almost two years of the project still to run.
That visibility translated into recognition. In September 2025, Ecohelix received the PackNorth Excellence Award, presented at the Empack trade fair, and in November 2025 we were presented with Packaging Europe’s Sustainability Award at the Packaging Europe event in Utrecht — two independent endorsements, from within our own industry, that the shift away from fossil-based coatings is gaining real momentum.
Working closely with the European Commission
Being an EU LIFE-funded project also means regular, structured dialogue with the Commission’s monitoring team. Our first monitoring visit took place on 3–4 February 2026, followed by a formal advisor’s letter setting the priorities for the rest of the period — work we’ve since acted upon to the best of our capacity. A second monitoring visit followed on 26 August 2026. As part of this ongoing dialogue, two additional deliverables were added to the project scope: a life-cycle and life-cycle-cost analysis and a report on the socio-economic impact of LIFE WOODMER, both signs that the project’s scope is well aligned with the EU’s LIFE programme scope and ambitions.
What´s next?
With permits confirmed, a host site secured, a stronger formulation validated with a real manufacturer, and detailed engineering complete, LIFE WOODMER is prepared to demonstrate tangible results. Construction of the expanded demonstration line at Domsjö Fabriker will move forward through the next phase of the project, with demonstration-scale production to follow. We will be sharing progress on the construction as it happens — including, we hope, the first ton of WOODMER Seal to come off the expanded line.
Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CINEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.