To cope with the increasing demand for sustainable solutions the municipality has set up an Industrial Innovation Research Institute for completely biodegradable new materials. Its team of experts consists of eleven people, including nine Professors and two Enterprise Managers. They joined the group from notable national institutions namely the Nanjing University of Technology, the Key Laboratory of National Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering (MCE), the Innovation Center for Advanced Inorganic Function Composites, the Research Institute of the Jiangsu Plastics Industry, the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences (NIES), the Ministry of the National Environmental Protection Department as well as the Standardization Technology Committee for Biodegradable Materials.