Lightweight Construction for Advanced Manufacturing

The European Regions Research and Innovation Network (ERRIN) is organising an event on lightweight manufacturing on Wednesday 16 December 2015 in Brussels. Entitled 'Lightweight Strategies and their Contribution to Added Value Manufacturing - A Heavy Topic?' the workshop will give an overview of state of play and recent developments in advanced manufacturing with a clearly defined thematic focus on lightweight construction and also look to identify the key future challenges and opportunities. This is an area of great interest to SusChem and highlighted in our recent Strategic Innovation and Research Agenda (SIRA).

The concept of 'lightweighting' refers to a means of construction with respect to materials and manufacturing that aims to reduce the mass and increase the quality of a product and all its component elements. The available data suggests that achieving a 10% decrease in weight within the broadly defined area of mobility (including cars, trucks, transport and machinery) would contribute to a reduction in emissions of some 100 million tonnes of CO₂ in Germany alone - and about three billion tonnes worldwide.

For advanced manufacturing lightweight construction is a crucial factor. However, it is not just enough to integrate a small number of lightweight parts into the process of manufacturing. Lightweight design needs a holistic approach from the choice of appropriate materials and the manufacturing process itself to consideration of the efficient and low-cost recycling of the product after its use.

Questions
The ERRIN workshop aims to give an overview of state of play and recent developments in advanced manufacturing and to attempt to answer a range of questions including:

• How do we prevent too much waste of lightweight components when it comes to mass production? Are there limits to lightweighting in construction?
• How will changes in weight affect the driving behaviour of an extremely lightweight car?
• How can we recycle to the maximum components of a lightweight product after use?

The workshop will take place on 16 December from 09:00 to 13:30 at the Saxony Liaison Office in Brussels at Avenue d’Auderghem 67, 1040 Brussels. The event is organised by ERRIN's Advanced Manufacturing and Nanotech working group.

The workshop will include presentations from Prof. Dr. Lothar Kroll of the Technical University of Chemnitz, Laszlo Bax of Bax and Willems Consulting and Prof. David Bailey of the Aston Business School in Birmingham.

The workshop will conclude with a panel discussion: 'Lightweight in Europe: Where are we? Where do we want to go to? What has to be  done?' with representatives from industry, academia and the European Commission.

A programme for the event can be downloaded here and you can register via this link.

About ERRIN
Founded in 2001, ERRIN is a unique Brussels-based platform of more than 120 regional stakeholder organisations most of whom are represented by their Brussels offices. ERRIN promotes knowledge exchange between its members, focusing on joint actions and project partnerships to strengthen regional research and innovation capacities. Through these actions ERRIN seeks to contribute to the implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy, the Innovation Union flagship initiative and Smart Specialisation strategies.

SusChem: Moving on Mobility!

Today (16 September) the EU-wide celebrations for EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK launched at the European Parliament in Brussels. The 2015 EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK launch focused on encouraging cycle commuting and integrating cycling in multimodal travel with the motto: ‘Choose. Change. Combine.’ The full week presents a wide range of sustainable mobility alternatives to citizens, explains the challenges that cities and towns are facing to induce behavioural change and make progress towards creating a more sustainable transport strategy for Europe.

Mobility is clearly one of the major challenges facing our urban areas today. And it is an area where SusChem and sustainable chemistry is contributing. SusChem’s recent Strategic Innovation and Research Agenda has a dedicated chapter on Smart, Green and Integrated Transport covering many innovations that are vital to achieving more sustainable mobility.

Chemistry contributions
Electric mobility must play an important role in the future and chemistry already offers numerous products and solutions in this area. The battery is the key component in electric vehicles and chemistry can make this technology more affordable, powerful and secure with the aim of increasing the range of vehicles.

In addition, lightweight design of vehicles is important. If the weight of a vehicle drops, its range can increase and / or it will use less energy. The chemical industry offers tailor-made polymers for many different applications from vehicle bodies to the engine compartment. Vehicles can be designed using recyclable materials, such as bio- and smart-materials, that can ensure vehicles do not become waste at the end of their useful life.  And new tyre concepts can reduce rolling resistance and extend range.

Managing energy in vehicles is important for efficiency especially for electric vehicles. In summer, air conditioning consumes additional energy, while in winter good insulation is important. In contrast to internal combustion engines the electric motor produces nearly no ‘waste’ heat. Chemical products can help here: special pigments applied on the windows reduce the warming of the interior in the sun, while high-performance foams offer perfect insulation in the winter.

If the internal combustion engine remains a significant propulsion source in vehicles in the short to medium term, sustainable chemistry will help through new catalytic exhaust gas treatments to remove organic compounds and fine particles. And fossil fuels can be substituted by synthetic fuels made, for example, by the conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) with solar energy or by fuels made from renewable (biomass) sources. Hydrogen produced efficiently from renewable sources is also a potential emission-free alternative to fossils fuels.

Smart mobility – sustainable solutions
The free movement of people and products is an essential element of our modern urban environment. However mobility comes at a cost: the consumption of a vast amount of energy (30% of the total energy consumed in the EU).

And with energy consumption – especially energy derived from fossil fuels – comes pollution. Mobility contributes considerably to CO2 emissions as well as other pollutants such as nitrogen oxides or small particles. Urban mobility accounts for some 40% of all CO2 emissions by road transport and up to 70% of other pollutants generated by transport.

Some of the solutions that sustainable chemistry can provide to meet the mobility challenge for Smart Cities and help stem urban air pollution are described above. But you can find much more information and ideas on mobility issues and sustainable chemistry solutions from SusChem, especially in the context of urban environments, at the resources outlined below.

SusChem is heavily involved with the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Smart Cities and Communities and you can download our Smart Cities Brochure. Mobility and Smart City solutions are also featured on our dedicated Smart Cities mobility page and the Innovation for Growth website.

What is European Mobility Week?
EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK is an annual campaign on sustainable urban mobility supported by the European Commission’s directorates for Energy and Transport. The aim of the campaign is to encourage European local authorities to introduce and promote sustainable transport measures.

The week runs from 16 to 22 September every year and sees events taking place across Europe and globally. ‘Choose. Change. Combine’ is the motto for 2015 and embracing multimodality is the main theme of the week. The aim is to encourage people to think about the range of transport options available, to choose the right mode when travelling, and inviting people to combine ways of getting around, which can often lead to a quicker and more pleasant journey.

Since 2002 EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK has sought to influence mobility and urban transport issues, as well as improve the health and quality of life of citizens. The campaign also gives citizens the chance to explore what the role of city streets really is, and to explore concrete solutions to tackle urban challenges, such as air pollution.

To discover more about how participating cities have used the campaign to enhance their sustainable transport policies, visit the best practice guides.

Final call for Sustainable Energy Awards 2014!

Is your company investing in energy efficiency, renewable energy or clean transport? Are you keen to gain EU recognition and visibility for your company’s sustainable energy investments? If so, the European Commission invites you to participate in the Sustainable Energy Europe Awards 2014. But you'll need to be quick: the deadline for entries is 28 March!

Every action counts; whether it’s a freshly refurbished energy efficient office, a clean mobility project, an energy efficiency campaign, or your energy saving software for customers. For 2014 the Sustainable Energy Europe Awards include five categories:

• COMMUNICATING: rising awareness actions
• LEARNING: educational and capacity building programmes
• LIVING: exemplary buildings
• CONSUMING: energy saving and renewables in consumption and production processes
• TRAVELLING: clean mobility projects

Winning projects will receive recognition and communication support, press promotion and a free audio-visual production featuring the project’s results. In addition, short-listed (five projects per category) and final winners will be invited to Brussels to present their project in a special conference and networking event to take place during the upcoming EU Sustainable Energy Week (23-27 June 2014). Travelling and accommodation costs for one representative will be covered. SusChem, of course, will be supporting #EUSEW 2014 as we did in 2013.

The winners will be announced during the EU Sustainable Energy Week 2014 in the presence of Energy Commissioner Günther H. Oettinger.

Why not share your company’s contribution to the EU 2020 energy targets and bring home the EU’s most important sustainable energy award?

More information
For more information visit the ManagEnergy and Sustainable Energy Europe Awards websites. Check out the competition’s eligibility and assessment criteria or click here to complete the short application form. You will need to register with the website before you can complete the form.

Don't forget the deadline for the competition is 28 March 2014. For queries or specific issues contact David Crous at the EUSEW organisers.

Chemical Innovation to play a critical role in Smart Cities

Today (October 14) the High-level Group (HLG) of the Smart Cities and Communities (SCC) European Innovation Partnership (EIP) presented its Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) to the European Commission. Chemical innovation can provide a range of concrete solutions to the challenges of improving our urban built environment and infrastructure and enable the realization of the truly Smart Cities of tomorrow.

With about three-quarters of European citizens living in or around cities, it is essential that Europe gets this right. “We need more structured EU dialogue on how to balance the diversity and complexity of city requirements with the industrial needs for a broader market scale of integrated technological concepts, from the retrofitting of buildings to ICT-enabled buildings to create a European market of affordable solutions,” said Dr. Gernot Klotz, Executive Director for Research and Innovation at Cefic and a SusChem board member. “A potential 50 000 individual solutions for the needs of 50 000 individual cities is an unsustainable path. There is a clear need to bring cities together to enable industry to supply broader affordable solutions.”

Strategic plan
The Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) marks a major milestone achievement for the Smart Cities and Communities High-level Group. The group brings together cities, industries and stakeholders across Europe to discuss ways to improve the standardization of innovative new solutions for urban districts and to accelerate their deployment across European cities.

The meeting (above) was hosted by Commissioner Neelie Kroes (Digital Agenda) and statements were made by Commissioners Siim Kallas (Transport), Günther H. Oettinger (Energy) and Johannes Hahn (Regional Policy). The chemical industry is represented on this important policy group by Giorgio Squinzi, CEO of Maipei and recent past president of Cefic.

The SIP outlines eleven ambitious targets in three specific areas that are expected to contribute to the broader development of sustainable mobility, sustainable districts and built environments, and integrated infrastructures and processes across Energy, information and communication technologies (ICT) and Transport.

“We appreciate the efforts and the result of the High Level Group in having a strategic implementation plan delivered within six months, on an extremely diverse and complex topic such as the future of cities in Europe” continued Dr. Klotz.

Chemistry: concrete contributions
Chemistry lies at the very heart of the built environment in every city and provides the fundamental building blocks for ICT, Energy and Transport. For example, new advanced materials for housing such as smart coatings and insulations are making houses more energy efficient, while advanced light-weight materials and printed electronics for mobility are making cars more connected, safer and more energy efficient.

These applications are expected to make a significant contribution towards the EIP’s goals. It is hoped that the SIP proposals will be implemented in full to address the full scale of “smart” city enabling technologies and to prioritize the creation of jobs and growth in Europe.

The Chemical Industry is ready to engage longer-term in the work of the EIP and has offered five concrete solutions for Chemistry-based initiatives for energy efficiency in buildings, which were selected as top key innovation by city officials at the last Smart Cities and Communities Stakeholder Platform conference.

The five key chemistry-based products proposed by SusChem to help improve building efficiency and help reach the EU 20-20-20 targets are:

• High-reflectance indoor coatings
• High-reflectance and durable outdoor coatings
• High-performance insulation foams 
• High-performance vacuum insulation panels
• Phase-change materials (PCM)

These five key chemistry-based products have been adopted as a Key Innovation by the Smart Cities and Communities Stakeholder Platform. Combined these products can offer substantial energy savings of up to 40% at an acceptable investment.

“All these solutions are assessed for technical feasibility and impact. What remains is the real life testing of these technologies in European cities and the chemical Industry is ready for this next step,” said Dr. Klotz.

Urban opportunity 
This Smart Cities and Communities EIP offers a great opportunity to reduce the complexity of city requirements and creates a market pull along industrial value chains as well as accelerating the creation of jobs and growth in Europe.

“It is only by working together that we can bridge the innovation gaps and stimulate the convergence of industrial value chains in the Energy, Transport and ICT sectors to find and implement the best solutions for smart cities. This is Europe’s unique strength and competitive edge over other regions of the world” concluded Dr. Klotz.

The EIP still has to improve its potential by including manufacturing as well as services in order to stimulate innovation for a broader European economy. This can happen through creating market pull and improvement to the SIP by giving manufacturing a more prominent role.

A public launch event for the SIP is being planned for 26 November in Brussels that will outline European funding and business commitments.

This is just the beginning of a large scale programme of work by all the partners and many others. An important part of that work will be the "Lighthouse Projects" - cities which will demonstrate and deliver Smart City solutions on a large scale. These Projects will be partly financed by the European Commission's Horizon 2002 Research Funds. Further business and public funding will help to spread these new solutions to other cities and economies of scale will help to make these "innovative" and "high tech" solutions the norm and available more easily to all cities and neighbourhoods.

The Commission is expected to invest around €200 million to create Smart Cities projects in the next two years.

Smart Cities
The Smart Cities and Communities EIP (SCC) is a partnership across the areas of energy, transport, and ICT with the objective of catalyzing progress in areas where energy production, distribution and use; mobility and transport; and ICT are intimately linked and offer new interdisciplinary opportunities to improve services while reducing energy and resource consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) and other polluting emissions.

The HLG acts in an advisory role to the Commission and consists of senior representatives of industry, cities, civil society, relevant EU initiatives in this area and member s of the European Commission as members. The group is led by the three European Commissioners for Energy, Transport and the Digital Agenda.

For more information on SusChem activities in support of the Smart Cities and Communities initiative, or to discuss potential collaborations in this area, please contact SusChem Coordinator Jacques Komornicki at Cefic. The new SusChem report can be downloaded here.

EU Week of Regions and Cities

The eleventh European Week of Regions and Cities is taking place this week (from 7 to 11 October) across Brussels. Jointly organised by the EU's Committee of the Regions and the European Commission’s DG for Regional and Urban Policy, the week highlights many areas of interest for SusChem – in particular Smart Cities and Mobility.

At the heart of European Week of Regions and Cities are the Open Days 2013 a series of events that takes place at venues around Brussels and feature examples of innovative initiatives to boost sustainability and competitiveness in regions and cities across the EU.

To coincide with the week a special issue of European Parliament Magazine’s Regional Review has been published with many articles focusing on regional policy from the Commission and parliamentary figures.

European Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn has invited all regions and cities to use this year's event to "learn more about the priorities of the next phase of the structural and investment funds". He underlined the aim to "ensure that the EU invests in key areas of growth to stay competitive in an ever more globalised economy".

The chair of the European Parliament's Regional Development Committee, former regional policy Commissioner Danuta Hübner, MEP, also called for the EU's regions to "be placed at the heart of the industrial renaissance process".

SusChem: innovation for growth
With the closer integration of structural and regional funds with research and innovation funding via Horizon 2020 it is clear that the opportunity for increased innovation –led growth in the EU regions will become a reality. And SusChem is willing to take a leading role in this exciting development.

In particular SusChem and the chemical sector have a portfolio of current and future solutions for the challenges of developing Smart Cities and the regeneration of the urban environment.

Coinciding with the EU Week of Regions and Cities our new website on Innovation-for-Growth has been launched. Within this website there are specific mini-sites on major societal challenges including Smart Cities for Europe and mobility.

The websites outline the challenges facing society in urban environments and regions and then describes the variety of solutions that chemistry and the chemical sector can or will be able to provide in the near future to boost EU citizen’s quality of life while also providing jobs and growth.

There is also a SusChem Smart Cities flier available.

More information
For more information on SusChem activities in the built environment take a look at the Innovation for Growth website or contact the SusChem secretariat.

Chemistry-Enabled Technologies Key to Future Mobility!

The European Union is currently celebrating its 13th European Mobility Week (EMW 2013) from 16 to 22 September. Many cities and towns across the continent have joined the initiative and implemented solutions and good practices that can be shared with other towns.

A typical example is the story of Burgas in Bulgaria. Last February, the city's bus fleet was entirely replaced by 67 new clean vehicles. The city’s efforts are now concentrated in the construction of a new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line which should be operational in 2015, creating a North-South bus corridor through the city. The city aims to further promote its investment in sustainable mobility by participating in EMW 2013.

More about this story can be found in a video produced by the Covenant of Mayors an organisation of local and regional authorities dedicated to sustainable development to which SusChem is affiliated.

Clean chemistry
Clean vehicles are based on solutions provided by the chemical industry: they require lightweight materials to contain energy consumption, and specific materials for the smaller batteries and catalysts required to clean up emissions.  Chemistry is the player that can enable more success stories on clean mobility in Europe and ensure clean air becomes a widespread urban reality.

Local authorities can rely on the chemical industry to provide the solutions to ensure that the ambitious EU targets for sustainable mobility are achieved, for example by helping making the vision for mobility of the Smart Cities Platform a reality.

But chemistry does not provide only sustainability and energy efficiency. It is also a force for safer transportation: from defrosting products for aeroplane wings that are essential in harsh weather conditions to resilient material for automotive vehicles, chemistry is at the heart of the processes ensuring safe and sound mobility.


SusChem staff recently followed a debate on Smart Mobility in Cities organized by the European Voice in Brussels. Speakers from the private sector, trade associations, local authorities and the European institutions discussed the most innovative technologies and initiatives for the mobility of tomorrow: from a new approach to parking space to novel hydrogen and electric vehicles.

Chemistry will surely play a part in making their vision and ideas a reality!

If you want more information on what chemistry can offer in terms of innovation in mobility, take a look at the new SusChem flier on mobility!

SusChem on the move for Mobility!

‘Smart Cities’ need smart, sustainable chemistry innovation and SusChem has developed some exciting proposals on energy efficiency in urban buildings. But one of the major challenges facing our urban areas is mobility. How can SusChem and sustainable chemistry help?  During European Mobility Week (16 – 22 September) SusChem will be highlighting some of chemistry’s contributions in this area.

Around three-quarters of the EU’s citizens live in or around cities and urbanisation is growing. Europe’s urban areas consume over 80% of the continent’s total energy supply. With growing pressure on resources, achieving a sustainable quality of life in cities is one of Europe’s major challenges.

To be environmentally sustainable, economically competitive and remain attractive to live in, cities need to reduce their total energy consumption, increase their use of renewable energy, adapt their physical and communication infrastructures and find solutions to mobility issues – in particular personal mobility.

Smart mobility
The free movement of people and products is an essential element of our modern urban environment. However mobility comes at a cost: the consumption of a vast amount of energy (30% of the total energy consumed in the EU).

And with energy consumption – especially energy derived from fossil fuels – comes pollution. Mobility contributes considerably to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as well as other pollutants such as nitrogen oxides or small particles. Urban mobility accounts for some 40% of all CO2 emissions by road transport and up to 70% of other pollutants generated by transport.

Changing our transport habits can go a long way to stemming urban air pollution. This year’s European Mobility Week theme is “Clean air – it’s your move!” and reflects the power that citizens have to clean up air quality through their mobility choices. It is a reminder that we all have a part to play, and that even small changes, such as commuting by bicycle rather than taking the car, opting for public transport, or choosing to walk, can enhance our quality of life.

Smart mobility requires a mind-set change in commuting habits. We need to re-think our reliance on a singular means of transportation, such as, walking, driving, biking, or taking public transportation to one that considers using a combination of these methods to achieve the most efficient commuting solution at the lowest carbon footprint.

Sustainable solutions
So what is sustainable chemistry doing to meet the mobility challenge for Smart Cities and help stem urban air pollution?

The answer is a huge amount with aspects of chemical science and engineering enabling innovative solutions to numerous mobility issues! Here are just a few examples.

• Lightweight materials, particularly composite and hybrid materials can drastically reduce the weight of vehicles without compromising safety requirements. And lighter vehicles mean lower cost, increased recyclability, better energy efficiency and therefore fewer emissions.
• And designing vehicles using recyclable materials such as bio- and smart-materials can ensure that vehicles do not become waste at the end of their useful life.
• New fuels, for example hydrogen produced from renewable sources, are potentially emission-free alternative to fossils fuels. The environmental and health benefits to society are even greater when hydrogen is produced from low- or zero-emission sources, such as solar or wind energy.
• Electric and hybrid vehicles are becoming more popular and have significant energy security and local zero emissions benefits. Battery technology is a key enabler here and future electric vehicles need smaller batteries that can provide a longer range between charging. Chemistry is key to ensuring that these very high energy density batteries are safe and can make electric mobility more attractive, cheaper and reliable.
• Catalysts are a key enabling technology for improved air quality and mobility whether as an essential element of new clean fuel cell powered cars or cleaning up emissions from fossil fuel powered vehicles. Catalyst exhaust systems remove a range of pollutants and using photo-catalytic coatings on the walls of tunnels and other transport infrastructure mean noxious pollutants can also be removed directly from the atmosphere.

You will be able to find more information on mobility issues and sustainable chemistry solutions at SusChem’s dedicated Smart Cities website due to be launched soon.

What is European Mobility Week?
European Mobility Week is an annual campaign on sustainable urban mobility supported by the European Commission’s directorates for Energy and Transport. The aim of the campaign is to encourage European local authorities to introduce and promote sustainable transport measures. The main theme for 2013 is ‘Clean air – it’s your move’.

The week runs from 16 to 22 September every year and will see events taking place across Europe and also globally. The week culminates in an ‘In Town Without My Car!’ event which sees participating urban areas setting aside areas solely for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport for an entire day.

In Brussels ‘Car Free’ day will be on Sunday 22 September and will see the whole 160 square kilometres of the capital region closed to traffic from 9 am to 7 pm transforming Europe’s capital into a pedestrian and cyclists’ paradise.