CORDIS

Housing represents one of the most important and resource consuming sectors, accounting for about 50% of all exctracted materials and 32% of global energy expenditure, as well as a third of water consumption at EU level. In a lifetime, an average EU citizen generates at least 160 tonnes of construction and demolition waste and this amount is increasing. These negative environmental impacts result from the linear ‘take, make, dispose’ model, the dominant economic model of our time, traditionally adopted by the de-cision-making of main stakeholders in the housing sector(i.e. construction companies, technological and product suppliers, design teams, municipalities, housing agencies, owners/dwellers/tenants and policy makers).
For this reason, the need to limit the huge environmental impact generated by the building sector, has become a priority in almost all the political agendas worldwide. Several EU policies, such as the “Construction Products Regulation”, the “Eco Design Directive”, the “Green Public Procurement” and the “Resource efficiency
opportunities in the building sector”, along with sustainability standards for construction (such as CEN TC 350 and ISO/TC 59/SC17), are all aligned with the objective of reducing the environmental impact of buildings by improving their overall resource efficiency. The Circular Economy Action Plan of 2015 reiterates
this objective and adds that, given the long lifetime of buildings, it is essential to encourage design improvements that will reduce their environmental impacts and increase the durability and recyclability of their components. In 2016, the EC commenced the debate for the forthcoming EU green building policy, with the aim of improving the sustainability, quality and value of the construction sector.
As a result the green building market is anticipated to be among the fastest growing industries worldwide. Driven by citizen and building owner demand for sustainability and operational cost reduction, the green building market is, indeed, doubling every three years.
To meet the sustainability needs of the building sector and satisfy the market demand for green products, MOGU has developed a proprietary technology to produce natural-grown materials. Our cutting-edge technology is based on mycelium, the vegetative stage of mushrooms. Over the years, we have identified effective protocols to monitor the growth of these amazing organisms and in line with that, we have learned to engineer the properties of the resulting materials. We produce materials by growing selected strains of mycelium on pre-engineered substrates made of agro-industrial residues. By tuning the matrix configuration, we harvest different materials within short timeframes and with limited use of resources. Fungal mycelium acts as a reinforcement to the matrix structure, creating a 100% plastic-free and coherent material composite. At the end of the production process, mycelium materials are inertized by slow drying, for reduced energy consumption. The resulting products are completely stable, safe and durable and biodegradable.
Starting from such material we designed MOGU floor, a natural-grown and high-performance resilient flooring. MOGU Floor tiles consist of a mycelium composite core, coated with a proprietary formulation of 90% bio-based resins. The tiles are designed as modular elements with an attractive design and distinctive tactile qualities, making it the most suitable solution for luxury living environments. The proprietary formulation of the bio-based resin utilised in Mogu Floor products is literally 90% bio-based, replacing traditional industrial pigments with low-value biomasses, such as corn crops, rice straw, spent coffee grounds, discarded seaweed and clam shells. Mogu Floor tiles are designed as modular elements, allowing to create colorful compositions and aesthetically pleasant patterns, according to personal taste and creativity.
MOGU floor has the potential to completely

Currently we are in the middle of the project and some milestones of the project have been achieved. In first place the design elements of the product have been defined. Such elements include the structural components of the tile and their manufacturing protocols. In addition the palette of tile size, shape and color has been defined. The elaboration of the first MOGU floor collection has been performed also involving multiple stakeholders of the building sector and engaging also potential customers and end-users. During this stage of the project it has been possible to characterize the product properties and perfom the most common industrial tests to assess the product behaviour in everyday life. The result has been a specification sheet with the most relevant information about the product. One the basis of the product properties and the market strategy the blue angel label has been selected as green certification to be achieved to maximise the value of the product for the customers. In parallel the manufacturing process has been developed and the upscale of the production plant is being designed. The mass flow of the plant has been calculated and the unit operations along the process line have been defined. The preliminary plant layout has been elaborated and the selection of the technologies to be implemented is being carried out.
From the market poin of view the brand identity of MOGU has been repositioned to better fit its market presence and prepare the launch of MOGU floor. At the same time, the market supply chain has been deeply assessed and the potential customers profiled and categorized. Such information have been gathered by engaging the stakeholders of the flooring market, including contractors, architects and distributors. In this way it has also been possible to refine our go-to-market strategy and start the negotiations for the distrubution agreements of MOGU products. Part of the stakaholders have been engaged thanks to the dissemination and communication activities performed on magazines, conferences, expositions, social media and so on.

During the first year of the project we have been able to optimize the product design and comply with the standard and requirements of the resilient flooring market. To the best of our knowledge no other mycelium based flooring have ever been produced making MOGU floor a first-of-a-kind in this market and represent a unique business case. Achieving such result presented several challenges and required a complex activity of technology transfer and tuning from other sectors that affected especially the design of the upscaled production plant.
Once MOGU floor will be launched on the market it will represent an elegant example of circular economy with the potential of opening an entire new market for mycelium based products.