The recently-held Plant-Based Summit in Lille, France, have shown continued optimism for growth of bio-based economies worldwide despite the decline in crude oil and petrochemicals prices worldwide. Europe, it seems, is much keener than ever to delve into renewable chemicals opportunities more so now compared to the US and even Asia. However, it remains to be seen whether the burgeoning R&D investments in Europe will soon translate to commercial investments. Below are snippets of information based on several presentations at the Summit, which was organized by the Association for plant-based chemistry (ACDV), in partnership with the InfoPro Digital group.