On June 11, 2015, the European Union (EU) provided UPM's ValChem project with €13.1 million to demonstrate the wood to chemicals value chain. ValChem is working to produce chemical building blocks and lignin from wood, resulting in a sustainable integrated process to produce economically viable biochemicals. UPM will work with Sekab, METabolic EXplorer, and Technische Universität Darmstadt on the ValChem project, which has a budget of €18.5 million. ValChem will use sustainably sourced wood in demonstration plants of the project partners to convert the wood to sugars, produce biobased mono propylene glycol from the sugars, and finally produce lignin based chemicals. This project is part of a joint undertaking between the Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC) and the EU to increase investment in Europe's sustainable bio-based industry.

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