Businesses worldwide are increasing their use of "white biotechnology" to save energy, reduce waste and cut corporate expenses by using fermentation as a production method.

In Europe, biotechnology is divided into three categories -- "green" for use in the agricultural field, "red" for the medical field and "white" for the industrial field.

BASF, a German chemical company and Europe's representative promoting white biotechnology, produces vitamin B2 for dietary supplements.

The company is using a fermentation method in which vegetable oil and other nourishment is given to a bacteria that has the enzyme to produce vitamin B2.

Before fermentation, BASF produced vitamin B2 using a four-stage chemical synthesis.

The new method allows the company to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent, waste by 95 percent and production expenses by 40 percent, it said.

Last year, BASF built a factory in South Korea to produce 3,000 tons of vitamin B2 annually, and a spokesman said it will further expand production to use the new method.

Fermentation is a traditional process used in Japan to produce miso and soy sauce.

Ajinomoto Co. produces amino acids using fermentation technology in its factories both here and abroad.

In the 1960s, Japan's top amino acid manufacturer moved to a fermentation method to abstract amino acids for its popular Ajinomoto seasoning, monosodium glutamate, to improve production efficiency.

By using microorganisms, whose fermentation ability is high, the company has saved 30 percent more energy than in fiscal 1990 in the production of fermentation-related products, company officials said.

One unique example of white biotechnology is found in extracting the luciferase enzyme from fireflies.

The tiny insects glow when the naturally-produced luciferase comes in contact with adenosine triphosphate (ATP), an energy source for all living things.

Major soy sauce producer Kikkoman Corp. began using a biotechnological process to extract the enzyme from the firefly Luciola cruciata in 1988.

With this technology, the company is able to mass produce reagent kits used for food sanitary inspections.

Food bacteria and dirt contain ATP that reacts to the luciferase in the kits by giving off light, indicating that a surface is contaminated.

"We used to directly extract luciferase from the tails of fireflies, but 100,000 fireflies were needed to produce 1 gram of luciferase," a company official said. "Without biotechnology, commercialization was impossible."

Tsutomu Sugiura, director of Marubeni Economic Research Institute and an expert on international economics, said, "There are many people who feel a sense of resistance to biotechnology, but the industrial use of white biotechnology can be socially accepted because it lessens environmental burdens.

"In 2010, the technology is estimated to be applied to 10 percent to 20 percent of all chemical products. There is a high possibility that the technology will also be applied to consumer goods and others around us," he said.