Peak Potential: Scaling the Mountain of Waste with Sustainable Solutions

By Tabitha Caswell for Bioenterprise

With a mountain of issues to climb, it can be difficult to remain positive when imagining the future of humanity and our home here on earth. But thanks to leaders like Franco Berruti, we are scaling that mountain, tackling challenges like climate change and a hungry, growing population through research and innovation. Equal parts realist and dreamer, Dr. Berruti acknowledges the stark reality of where our planet might be headed. But with a steadfast love for nature and the environment, he keeps the summit in his sights and refuses to give up.

Holding the Industrial Research Chair in Thermochemical Conversion of Biomass and Waste to Bioindustrial Resources with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) since 2018, Franco Berruti shares his perspectives surrounding one of the most important topics of our time – waste.

From Death, Comes Life

Dr. Berruti’s story begins in the fertile Italian countryside, tending the family gardens and vineyards, sharing space with animals and riding horses, and learning to drive the tractor at the tender age of ten years old. It was there, on his grandparents’ farm, where Franco first witnessed the delicate balance of nature.

Country life has a way of profoundly affecting humans, revealing the truth and beauty within the infinite cycle of life and death, and this impressionable young boy was not immune to nature’s great influence. There, on the farm, waste was a treasure, a tool, a resource. It was returned to the earth, to the soil, back to the plants and animals, and back to the people. Young Franco may not have realized the significance of this concept then, but his childhood experience undoubtedly shaped his future and his purpose.

Despite his early academic interest in humanities, after high school Franco changed his focus from Greek, Latin, and the arts, to earn his Dott.Ing degree in Chemical Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino, Italy. At the age of 25 he moved to Canada to study at the University of Waterloo, where he earned his Master of Applied Science degree and then his PhD.

Evolving though various leadership roles, from the University of Calgary to the University of Saskatchewan where he served as Dean of Engineering, and finally landing at the University of Western Ontario, Dr. Berruti is also a valued member of the Science and Innovation Advisory Committee (SIAC) at Bioenterprise.

Dr. Berruti has a legendary reputation for developing innovative technologies and for building a solid network in Canada and North America, and across the world. His award-winning work covers the full spectrum of the waste-value loop. In terms of sustainability, we could draw a definite line between the oil and gas industry and the biomass conversion industry, which seem to reside on opposite ends of the spectrum. But Franco chooses to straddle that line, as to keep a steady foothold while reaching for the ledge above.

Adjusting to maintain this position after each move, he draws on lessons from his past as he makes incremental, meaningful advances toward the final ascent. His purpose and vision are embodied in this simple statement, “In my mind, as in nature, waste does not exist.”