DO YOU WANT TO BE A PART OF REMOVING RUBBER GRANULES FROM ARTIFICIAL GRASS FIELDS IN YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY?

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Emission of micro plastics from artificial grass fields is a mayor environmental issue in Norway and the rest of the world. On every one of these fields there are presented tens of tons of rubber from sliced car tires. A large quantity of these rubber granules escapes into the nature every year, form there a lot of them move with the watercourse and end up in the continental oceans. The climate – and environment department have considered micro plastics from rubber granules to amount to roughly 30% of the land-based emission of plastics in Norway. A lot of these rubber granules also find their way into private homes and especially in washing machines.

(Ref. https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/noregs-plaststrategi/id2867004/ )

 

GOE – production is a small recently established company in a scientist environment in Stavanger, Norway. The company’s goal is to be able to offer an alternative to rubber granules and to make environmentally friendly fill for artificial grass fields.

 

DEVELOPMENT of GOE BIO GRANULES

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GOE Production is currently developing environmentally friendly fill for artificial grass fields. This work has been ongoing for the past five years, and a lot of effort has been put into this work. Many different alternatives have been considered, and the preliminary results have shown that GOE BIO granulate is a good and environmentally friendly fill for artificial grass fields.

Birch wood is the raw material used to produce GOE BIO granules. The heartwood is machined into particles of a small size. These are further processed and preserved before being put in a 15mm layer on artificial turf fields. There are no artificial additives used in the production of GOE BIO granules. Just under 100 birch trees are needed to fill a full-size football pitch. These trees are collected from a local forest in Ryfylke (Rogaland). GOE production will take the initiative to replant the corresponding number of trees used to maintain the access to good raw materials.

 

GOE BIO granules have been tested according to FIFA procedures at SportsLab, a company based outside Edinburgh in Scotland. These tests have shown that GOE BIO granules satisfies the requirements set by FIFA for both non – league football and top division football.

 

GOE production has established a pilot process for the production of GOE BIO Granules at Hjelmeland in Ryfylke. Here we use local forests and labor to develop and produce the fill of the future for artificial turf pitches. Early in the summer of 2021, we established a test production sequence. We are now in the process of expanding production for commercial deliveries for as soon as 2022. Agreements with several customers have been signed.

 

 

GOE BIO GRANULES at SUKKEVANN SPORTS FACILITES in KRISTIANSAND MUNICIPIAL

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During the summer of 2021, we established a facility with four test fields (a total of 9000m2) at Sukkevann sports facility just outside of Kristiansand. This was done in cooperation with the Norwegian Football Association (NFF), Kristiansand Municipality and Randesund sports club. Football is currently being played on these fields to its full potential where one of these tracks contain GOE BIO Granules. During 2021/2022 we will perform a series of test on the field to qualify the filling for the strictest requirements within artificial turf pitches – FIFA Quality/ FIFA Quality Pro. https://www.fifa.com/technical/football-technology/standards

 

The feedback received from testing has so far been very positive, and the players are saying that the field is good to play on. The filling was put on the first test field in September 2021, and we are working closely with NFF and Randesund Sports club to obtain and structure feedback from the players. This work is currently underway and it will give us a lot of valuable input for the future development of GOE BIO Granules.

 

OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES IN FUTURE MARKET

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There are currently some existing environmentally friendly fills for artificial grass fields. Some of these are cork, olive stone and scrap forest. There are also a number of alternative suppliers of environmentally friendly fill for artificial grass fields. All these suppliers are located outside of Norway, and they use labor and raw material from other parts of the world.

GOE BIO Granules is a technologically developed fill where complicated physical and biochemical properties of the wood are developed in production. Both the technology and the process that creates GOE BIO Granules have been applied for protection under a comprehensive patent. This is under consideration, and approval is expected during the first half of 2022.

It is GOE Production`s understanding that GOE BIO Granules surpasses all other fillings in terms of player experiences, winter properties, environmental footprint, technical properties and durability.

Opportunities for new construction of artificial grass fields

As of July 2021, it has become illegal to use fill made of plastic material and polymers in the same manner when building new artificial grass fields.

If you still want to use plastic-containing material, the field and area must be equipped with facilities for collecting and limiting discharges via both drainage and athletes (e.g. in shoes and jersey).

Builders of artificial grass fields should preferably choose environmentally friendly alternatives to plastic and polymers.

GOE BIO granules is one such an alternative.

We expect an annual new construction of just under 840 artificial grass fields in Europe. This is a 2% increase compared to the current number of fields in Europe.

OBJECTIVE: PRODUCE and DELIVER to 4% of the MARKET for NEW CONSTRUCTION of ARTIFICIAL GRASS FIELDS.

GOE Production has a cautious goal of delivering 4% market share to the market for new construction of artificial grass fields in Norway and Europe.

This will give GOE Production a potential turnover of 13M NOK (1.3M EURO) – quantity: 30 fields – with a possible profit of 3M NOK (306.000 EURO) from this turnover.

 

 

Existing opportunities for GOE BIO granules

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There are currently about 42.000 large and small artificial grass fields in Europe. These fields have a normal lifespan of approximately 10 years. For each year, 1/10 of the existing fields in Europe will be renovated and the fill needs to be replaced – quantity: 4200 fields. 100m3 of fill will be replaced for each field – preferably with an environmentally friendly alternative.

GOE production is one of very few who provide an environmentally friendly alternative filling for artificial grass fields.

We use Norwegian timber for the production of GOE BIO granules, and we have a goal of producing fill for fields.

This filling has a realistic market price of 500.000 NOK (51.089 EURO) per field. If the calculations are correct, the company will have a 25% profit margin which equates to 100.000 NOK (10.223 EURO) per field.

OBJECTIVE: PRODUCE and DELIVER to 4% of THE MARKET for RENOVATION of ARTIFICIAL GRASS FIELDS

GOE Production has a cautious market goal of delivering a 4% market share of artificial grass fields that are due for renovation in Norway and Europe.

This will give GOE production a potential turnover of 70M NOK (7.1M EURO) – Quantity: 170 fields – with a possible profit of 17M NOK (1.7M EURO) from this turnover.