Green Week 2014: Chemical Innovation and the Circular Economy

SusChem will be taking an active role in Europe’s biggest annual conference on environmental policy that launches today (3 June). The Green Week 2014 conference takes place from 3 to 5 June in Brussels. And its themes for 2014 – the circular economy and resource efficiency – are topics where SusChem is already taking a lead.

The Green Week 2014 programme is full of SusChem relevant sessions and SusChem will be present throughout the week.

In particular session 6.3 on ‘Business and Resource Efficiency’ on Thursday morning from 11:30 addresses how businesses can improve resource efficiency, enhance competitiveness, reduce costs and contribute to better resource management. The session will showcase good practice and the potential for scale-up from companies participating in initiatives including the SPIRE (Sustainable Process Industry through Resource and Energy Efficiency) PPP.

During the session Pádraig Naughton, Innovation Manager - Resource and Energy Efficiency at Cefic (right), will talk about SPIRE and resource efficiency initiatives at the Dow Chemical company.

In his contribution Pádraig will be emphasising the underlying principle of the circular economy: that it cannot be achieved without wide-scale collaboration and cooperation. “There is a need to extend beyond company boundaries to regions, national and European levels,” says Pádraig. “We need to work with partners along the value chain, within and across sectors.”

SPIRE initiative
This is, of course, where initiatives like the SPIRE PPP, which is bringing together eight industry sectors to tackle resource and energy efficiency issues in a major pan-European cross-sectorial effort, are so important.

“An understanding and close cooperation with adjacent industries is required to maximize the benefits from waste and by-products, which could enable increased process efficiency in chemical processes,” says Pádraig.

Pádraig will also talk about other ongoing initiatives in the chemical industry and related sectors including developments at Dow’s Terneuzen complex in south-west Netherlands and a number of Cefic-SusChem FP7 funded projects including Chemical Regions for Resource Efficiency (R4R) and BIO-TIC.

A value chain approach is essential for success to ensure that the supply circle is closed and suppliers and all value chain partners, including consumers, enable the recycle and reuse of waste as a production resource. This means that cross-sectorial partnerships, such as SPIRE, must ensure that innovation is enabled and implemented across all elements of society. The innovation chain must connect research to customers to consumers to government and regulatory policymakers.

Technological and business solutions are being developed in local and EU-wide initiatives that can enable a circular economy, but there are policy, trade and image barriers that need to be addressed. “For example, cross-border transfer of waste remains a challenge which needs to tackled at EU level,” explains Pádraig.

Industrial symbiosis
The concept of industrial symbiosis will be an important part of the circular economy and will be included in the priorities in the new SusChem Strategic Innovation and Research Agenda (SIRA) to be launched for wider consultation at the SusChem Stakeholder event on 11 – 12 June.

Industrial symbiosis occurs where waste and side streams are used in an integrated concept for complete resource management at, for example, an industrial park, site or region. The strategic challenge of industrial symbiosis is to increase resource efficiency and turn waste, including chemical sector by-products and carbon dioxide (CO2), into resources. This will address issues including resource flows (materials and energy) to identify opportunities to reuse these resources, resource efficiency (i.e. new tools to optimize resource efficiency in manufacturing) and CO2 reuse (new products from reusing CO2).

#useCO2
Following the session on ‘Business and Resource Efficiency’ on the afternoon of 5 June these is also a session that directly addresses the use of CO2 as a potential raw material for industry.

Session 7.1 ‘Carbon dioxide – today’s waste, tomorrow’s raw material?’ will look at a range of emerging processes that are looking to use CO2 to produce chemicals, materials and fuels. This is an area where SusChem and SPIRE are already heavily engaged in the European Commission’s new research and innovation programme Horizon 2020.

The SusChem SIRA will further outline our thinking in this and other areas and the practical research and innovation activities that are required to turn the concepts of a circular society and radically improved resource efficiency into a reality.

Green Week 2014 will be taking place with events throughout Europe and Brussels. The venue for the main Green Week conference will be the Egg Conference Centre, Rue Bara, in Brussels. Visit the Green Week website for more details.

Green Week 2014: SusChem working for the Circular Economy

Green Week is Europe’s biggest annual conference on environmental policy and takes place next week from 3 to 5 June in Brussels. Its themes for 2014 – the circular economy and resource efficiency – are topics where SusChem and its major European public private partnerships - the SPIRE PPP and the Biobased Industries JTI – are already taking a lead.

The 2014 edition of Green Week will take place at The Egg Conference Centre, Rue Bara, in Brussels. SusChem, SPIRE and the Biobased Industries JTI are all supporting initiatives that can deliver a working circular economy in Europe, improve resource and energy efficiency and reduce waste. SusChem representatives will be speaking during the Green Week conference.

SusChem fully supports the concept of a circular economy as one of the logical solutions for a resource-constrained world. In the circular economy almost nothing is wasted, the re-use and remanufacturing of products is standard practice, and sustainability is a core element in the fabric of society.

Delivering a circular economy
These elements of a circular economy are all concepts that SusChem has embraced since its formation in 2004 and has supported with practical research and innovation projects.

Current SusChem inspired projects funded under FP7 in this area include Chemical Regions for Resource Efficiency (R4R), the Critical Raw Materials Innovation Network (CRM_InnoNet), BIO-TIC. And SusChem is also very engaged with issues around reducing fresh water use by industry.

And, of course, the SPIRE PPP is all about dramatically increasing resource and energy efficiency across a wide range of process industries.

Our SusChem stakeholder event in mid June will discuss the priorities in our new 2014 SusChem Strategic Innovation and Research Agenda (SIRA). The SIRA will further outline our thinking in this area and the practical research and innovation activities that are required to turn the concepts of a circular society and radically improved resource efficiency into reality.

During 2014 the European Commission is setting out new proposals enabling Europe to unlock the potential of the circular economy, underlining the need to change our way of thinking about design. There will also be a focus on better waste management, and on how it can help the EU use its resources more efficiently. SusChem looks forward to working with the Commission to enable this potential to be fulfilled.

Spain starts early!
In fact for SusChem Green Week has already started with an official Green Week satellite event: The Third Forum on Sustainable Chemistry: Innovative and Competitive Companies (SCICC) that took place in Tarragona, Spain on 28 and 29 May. Tarragona is home to the largest chemical cluster in the Mediterranean and Southern Europe. The event was organised by SusChem Spain.

In line with the main themes of Green Week 2014, the Forum focused on the concept of the circular economy as an economic system based on reuse of resources, energy and resource efficiency – areas where the contribution of sustainable chemistry is essential.

Speakers in the opening plenary on Wednesday 28 May included SusChem board member Gernot Klotz of Cefic, who spoke on how the chemical industry is effectively supplying the roots for sustainable growth in Europe, and Lorenzo Valles of the European Commission who outlined the role that the SusChem inspired SPIRE PPP will be playing to deliver increased energy efficiency and sustainable resources.

Other sessions covered topics such as ‘efficiency and design’, ‘resource efficiency’, ‘energy efficiency and process intensification’, and ‘by-product valorisation’. This last session included presentations on the potential use of CO2 as a feedstock for the chemical industry.

The forum closed with some concluding remarks by SusChem Europe chairman Dr Klaus Sommer.

The main purpose of SCICC was to promote the debate and the sharing of knowledge on new processes and chemical products that are more efficient, safe and environmentally friendly and can form the basis of a truly circular economy. A great start to Green Week 2014!

Don’t Waste Waste

The next phase of the European Commission's 'Generation Awake' campaign has just been launched (4 February). The campaign focuses on the environmental, economic, social and personal consequences of using resources unsustainably. With its own focus on resource efficiency and enabling the circular economy the SPIRE PPP is a big supporter of the campaign. 

The ‘Generation Awake’ campaign aims to make consumers aware of the consequences their consumption patterns have on natural resources, illustrating the benefits if they choose to act differently.

The latest phase in the campaign centres round a fully interactive, multi-lingual website and features animated characters that highlight the environmental impact of everyday purchasing decisions (see video below).

“SPIRE is proud to support the ‘Generation Awake’ campaign,” said Loredana Ghinea, Executive Director of A.SPIRE – the body coordinating the SPIRE PPP. “The campaign emphasises that all our futures depend on the choices we make about resources now. The SPIRE PPP is all about improving energy and resource efficiency within industry and through that for our entire society. And individual choices are as important as those made by corporations and institutions. Only through a united effort can be we reach our sustainability objectives.”

Resourceful Campaign
The Generation Awake campaign makes it clear that the choices you make individually can make a world of difference. The campaign is all about opening people’s eyes to the consumer choices they make and the consequences these have on the earth’s natural resources. By engaging with Generation Awake, citizens become more aware that these choices not only change their world, but our planet too.

Our future depends on how we use resources now and the campaign highlights the impact of our behaviour on natural resources such as water, fertile soils, clean air and biodiversity: as resources become scarcer, we put our future welfare at risk.

The multi-billion Sustainable Process Industry Public-Private Partnership (SPIRE PPP),  which was officially launched on 17 December as part of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation initiative, brings together eight European process industries and aims at integrating, demonstrating and validating systems and technologies across sectors.

SPIRE will achieve its goals by investing in breakthrough technologies to reduce the resources and energy used in processes as well as minimising industrial emissions and waste. The PPP will reuse resources and materials from end-of-life products to provide raw materials for new products and will replace current feedstock by integrating renewables or waste - for example biomass and even CO2.

Resource efficiency

“Resource efficiency is about using resources sustainably – doing more, much more, with less and minimising impacts on the environment,” continues Loredana (pictured right). “It is about making the right choices to ensure a good quality of life, not just for now, but for the generations to come. The SPIRE strategic research and innovation roadmap to 2030 dedicates one of its four technological pillars to waste. The process industry is central to transforming waste into a valuable resource not only at a product’s end-of-life phase but, especially, during the production process itself and across industrial sectors.”

“Becoming resource-efficient means changing our way of thinking and patterns of behaviour and taking account of how our choices affect natural resources. It’s not about consuming less – it’s about consuming differently,” she concludes.

Despite EU-wide recycling targets and successes in certain areas, Europe's waste is still a hugely under-used resource. A study prepared for the Commission estimates that full implementation of EU waste legislation would save €72 billion a year, increase the annual turnover of the EU waste management and recycling sector by € 42 billion, and create over 400 000 new jobs by 2020.

The Generation Awake website invites visitors to discover the value of waste, showing how it can be reused, recycled, exchanged and repaired rather than being thrown away. A related Facebook page invites citizens to take up challenges like reducing food waste and cutting water use. Anyone can join in, and everyone is encouraged to spread the message: waste which cannot be avoided can become a valuable resource, and saving resources means saving money.

Serious message
Behind the light-hearted campaign is a serious message: waste often contains valuable materials that can be reintroduced into the economic system. Today, a significant amount of potential secondary raw material is lost to the European Union's economy due to poor waste management. On average the amount of waste produced each year is equivalent to five tonnes per citizen.

By reducing, reusing and recycling waste we can all contribute to a vibrant economy and a healthy environment. This saves environmental and economic resources, helping push Europe towards a more circular economy, where we get the greatest value out of resources and products by repairing, re-using, re-manufacturing and recycling them.

The campaign targets 25-to 40-year-olds with a special focus on young urban adults and families with small children. Since its launch in October 2011, the campaign website has been visited over 750 000 times, the videos have been viewed by over 4.5 million people, and the Facebook page has attracted close to 100 000 fans.

This new phase of the campaign includes a photo competition for suggestions on turning rubbish into a resource. The winner will be awarded a trip to Copenhagen, the European Green Capital 2014.

SPIRE supports Generation Awake

The A.SPIRE aisbl, the industry association behind the SPIRE Public Private Partnership (PPP) has become an official supporting partner of the European Commission’s “Generation Awake” Campaign. This DG Environment campaign is working to raise awareness on issues around using current resources sustainably.

“SPIRE is proud to be associated with the ‘Generation Awake’ campaign,” said Loredana Ghinea, Executive Director of A.SPIRE. “The campaign emphasises that all our futures depend on the choices we make about resources now. The SPIRE PPP is all about improving energy and resource efficiency within industry and through that for our entire society. And individual choices are as important as those made by corporations and institutions. Only together can be we reach our sustainability objectives.”

Resourceful Campaign
The Generation Awake campaign makes it clear that the choices you make individually can make a world of difference. The campaign is all about opening people’s eyes to the consumer choices they make and the consequences these have on the earth’s natural resources. By engaging with Generation Awake, citizens become more aware that these choices not only change their world, but our planet too.

Our future depends on how we use resources now and the campaign highlights the impact of our behaviour on natural resources such as water, fertile soils, clean air and biodiversity: as resources become scarcer, we put our future welfare at risk.

A.SPIRE's mission is to ensure the development of enabling technologies and best practices that will contribute to a resource efficient process industry. The ultimate goal is to promote the deployment of the innovative technologies and solutions required to reach long term sustainability for Europe and its process industries.

Resource efficiency
Resource efficiency is about using resources sustainably – doing more with less and minimising impacts on the environment. It is about making the right choices to ensure a good quality of life, not just for now, but for the generations to come.

Becoming resource-efficient means changing our way of thinking and patterns of behaviour and taking account of how our choices affect natural resources. It’s not about consuming less – it’s about consuming differently.

For more information on the ‘Generation Awake’ visit the website or download the ‘Generation Awake’ Guide that covers a wide range of topics including air, water, soil, minerals, timber, biodiversity, waste, reusing, recycling, transport/ travel and energy efficiency.

 

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Steering the Water EIP

Last week was a big week for the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Water with the first meeting of its High-level Steering Group on 4 September. This initial meeting was chaired by European Commissioner for the Environment Janez Potocnik and representing SusChem and the chemical industry on the Steering Group was Anton Valero, Dow Country Manager for Spain and Portugal.

The EIP Steering Group provides strategic guidance for the development of the partnership’s Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP). Discussion at this first meeting of the Steering Group focused on four questions:

• Which enabling factors are required to develop a strategic agenda for water and innovation?
• Which do you consider to be the key priority areas of action and what do you consider to be a realistic number of priorities for the EIP on Water?
• What are the key crosscutting themes which the EIP on Water should address?
• Which assessment criteria do you consider to be relevant to judge the success of the EIP on Water?

Commissioner Potocnik outlined some of the outcomes of the meeting during a session of the European Parliament’s Water Group that followed the Steering Group kick off meeting. In particular he highlighted priorities including the water-energy nexus, water governance, financing for innovation, resource efficient urban water supply and wastewater treatment, balancing supply and demand, integration of rural water management and land-use planning, water supply and sanitation for small rural communities, and best practices in industrial water management.

The definition of priorities to be addressed will be an important step in the preparation of the SIP.

Task Force
The Steering Group consists of 30 members and a Task Force consisting of 45 members representing a wide cross-section of Stakeholders engaged in various areas of water management has also been set up. The nomination of Task Force members was one of the actions carried out during the 4 September meeting. SusChem will be represented in the Task Force by Gernot Klotz and Anton Valero has appointed Markus Busch, also from Dow, as his representative on the body.

The first Task Force meeting will take place on 25 September and the body has the specific task of writing the SIP. The document should be finished by the end of November and approved by the Steering Group before the end of the year.

Chemical viewpoint
At the initial meeting Anton Valero outlined the role of the Chemical Industry in the EIP. The chemical industry thinks the EIP should be considered as a framework to boost know-how, innovation and job creation across the EU on water related technologies and solutions.

Water is on the one hand a valuable and necessary resource for our industries’ activities, future growth and investments depends on the availability of water; while on the other hand the industry uses water in its products and manufactures products for water offering new solutions to the market.

The chemical industry has identified four key water-related challenges in Europe:

• Water as a resource: Quantity and Quality
• Waste water treatment: more sustainable
• Water – Energy resources nexus
• The development of the bio-based economy and eco-industries

The industry fully supports the overarching objectives of the EIP to develop innovative solutions bringing benefits for the whole society and to fully exploit the commercial opportunities for these water related innovative solutions inside and outside Europe building a more sustainable and competitive European industry.

Background
The background to the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Water is outlined in the European Commission Communication of May 2012. The EIP will be a tool to support the Blueprint to safeguard Europe's water resources, which will be presented by the Commission in November 2012 as the water milestone of the European Commission’s Resource Efficiency roadmap.

For more information on SusChem activities in the water sector contact Antonia Morales Perez, Innovation Manager at Cefic.

Water EIP gets Website

The candidate European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Water has just launched its own dedicated webpages on the European Commission's DG Environment website. The site describes the innovation initiative and allows interested parties to view and contribute to the on-going consultation process.

The candidate EIP on Water was initiated by DG Environment, in close cooperation with DG Research and Innovation, other Commission DG's and stakeholders such as SusChem, to develop a proposal to take forward under the Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative for an Innovation Union.

An EIP is designed to unite all relevant European actors and resources around common targets to speed up breakthrough innovations to solve specific societal challenges where there is also a large market potential for EU business.

The strategic objective of the proposed EIP on Water is to position Europe as a world leader in water technology and services by boosting innovation, promoting the creation of new market opportunities and by contributing to achieving the sustainable and efficient use of water, while at the same time using innovation to develop adequate and state of the art European water policy.

Three point strategy
The strategic objective has three main thrusts:

• To develop innovative solutions for the many water quality and quantity challenges Europe (and the world) is facing. These water related challenges serve as the driver for interaction between policy and innovation.
• To boost innovation, creating a global leadership position for European water technology and services, in line with the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy.
• To mobilise all relevant actors at EU, national and regional levels, remove any regulatory and market barriers, promote the integration of various policy and finance instruments and increase the demand for innovation, across all sectors and users of water.

The heart of the EIP will be a number of Innovation Sites. In the current proposal, that is subject to consultation, the Innovation Sites will be organised around three work packages. These are:

• Urban water management
• Rural water management
• Industrial water management

In addition a number of horizontal themes will be addressed and, initially, up to 30 Innovation Sites are foreseen. Each innovation site will be a large-scale, solution-focussed project.

For more information on the Water EIP visit the DG Environment website or contact Cefic Innovation Manager Antonia Morales Perez who is coordinating SusChem input.

Water Efficiency Workshop looks to ETPs for Innovation

Today (15 December), the next step towards the Water Efficiency European Innovation Partnership (EIP) took place at a workshop in Brussels organized by the European Commission. The event held at the EUREKA offices in Woluwe Saint Lambert highlighted possible innovative contributions to the EIP from SusChem and other European Technology Platforms (ETPs).

Under the Innovation Union flagship initiative of the European Union, the Commission’s DG Environment, in cooperation with DG Research and Innovation and other DGs, is developing a proposal for a candidate EIP on Water Efficiency. The objective of the Water Efficiency EIP is to develop innovative solutions for water related challenges and boost innovation to create a global leadership position for European water technology and services.

The 15 December workshop was one of a series of stakeholder consultations to help develop the EIP and was specifically targeted at relevant European Technology Platforms, including SusChem and the Water Supply and Sanitation ETP (WssTP), to discuss existing innovative solutions, develop a prioritization of areas in which innovative solutions need to be developed and identify where the activities of these ETPs and the EIP can support each other. Other topics included discussion of the optimal governance model for such an EIP.

SusChem solutions
The meeting was active, open and free discussion on priorities and possible research and innovation needs in the water sector. SusChem’s input was led by Cefic Innovation Manager Antonia Morales Perez.

“The meeting was very positive and constructive,” commented Antonia. “SusChem is determined to show leadership and to make a significant contribution to solving water issues by working with partners to pursue large-scale projects which can demonstrate real value for society.”

Water is one of four key innovation initiatives for SusChem. SusChem is looking to develop breakthrough technologies and provoke a paradigm shift in integrated water management systems. This essentially involves revaluing water as a precious raw material rather than a utility product: rethinking the traditional approach in order to avoid future competition for water supply between industry and citizens in, for example, urban areas.

Priority for Europe
In June 2011, the Council of the European Union concluded that 'while water availability and water quality are essential for sustainable development and green economy, waters face many threats including increasing trends of global population growth, urbanization, pollution, overexploitation, desertification and climate change.’ Due to these increasing challenges and greater demand for scarce water resources it has been estimated that a global water supply shortage of up to 40% may emerge by 2030.

To achieve water resources protection and sustainable water management the Council highlighted the importance of innovation to find sustainable solutions and invited the Commission to 'investigate an innovation partnership on water in close cooperation with the Member States, with a view to achieving sustainable and efficient use of water.'

The overarching visionary objective of the candidate EIP is that in 2020 Europe will have safe, available and affordable water supply and waste water treatment for all users in place, based on sustainable management of the water resources and the most innovative, competitive and cost effective solutions.

Following the current intense consultation period, it is hoped that a final blueprint for a Water Efficiency EIP could be published in an EC Communication in June 2012. This would be highly appropriate as 2012 has been declared as European Year of Water. Following endorsement by the European Council and European Parliament this could allow the EIP to become operational by early 2013.