construction

CONSULTATION ROUND INISIGHTS: INTERVIEW WITH MARISA GROENESTEGE FROM BTG

Marisa Groenestege is a consultant at BTG Biomass Technology Group, one of the ALIGNED project consortium members and the Lead of the action about the improvement of bio-based industry in the textiles sector. Alongside its colleague Patrick Reumerman, she ensures the consultations and workshops development, as well the gathering of information about the different bio-based sectors.

What is the main role of BTG in ALIGNED?

(BTG) is a high-tech company, employing a team of skilled bioeconomy and bioenergy consultants, researchers, technology, and business developers. Our firm has three decades of experience operating in the bioeconomy, developing, and promoting technology and processes to produce bioenergy, biofuels, and bio-based products, combining academic intelligence with practical field experience. Within the ALIGNED project, BTG is involved in all WPs and leads the specifical improvement of bio-based industry in the textiles sector. In those first months, we are carrying out different consultations and workshops, as well the gathering information about the Construction, Woodworking and Textiles sectors.

What are your expectations from the ALIGNED project?

Bio-based products hold the promise of being far more environmentally friendly, sustainable, and circular than their fossil alternatives. It is very important to make sure that these bio-based products are promoted and developed and that their environmental benefits are advertised.

Our goal is to improve the environmental sustainability of bio-based industries, specifically in the construction, woodworking, textiles, pulp and paper and biochemicals sectors. We do this by making it easier to prove a product’s sustainability, by aligning and simplifying LCA methodology.

To better understand the environmental sustainability within these sectors, we are gathering the opinions of people working in these sectors about the most important environmental issues and the assessment methods.

Can you talk a bit more about the Consultation Rounds you are coordinating for the stakeholders’ engagement?

To make sure that our work and our methods are accepted and used in practice, it is vital that we engage with stakeholders, so that we address the actual problems they have.

We are currently having online consultations, one for each of the 5 sectors. These consultations are in the form of an online survey, which is mostly multiple-choice and takes about 5 to 10 minutes to fill in. We recently held the consultations for construction, woodworking, and textiles sectors, are currently holding the consultation for the pulp and paper sector and we will be publishing the biochemicals consultation soon as well. All people from these sectors are encouraged to fill in the survey and help us shape the ALIGNED project!

What are your first findings in those activities? Is there any need that you find in common in these different sectors?

We found that many people have difficulties with environmental assessments. Not only are there many different standards and systems with different outcomes, but the methodologies are also often time-consuming, costly, and difficult to access and understand. Exactly what the ALIGNED project aims to improve!

What do you think will be the main outcomes of the next Consultation Rounds?

We want to gather as much information and opinions about environmental sustainability in the sectors as possible. We would like to know what environmental sustainability problems there are, how these can best be addressed, and how to make it easier to prove that. So please, fill out the survey, join our workshops and let your voice be heard!

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ALIGNED CELEBRATES ITS FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY MEETING

This morning, the ALIGNED project partners celebrated the First General Assembly Meeting of the initiative. Technical and Administrative coordinators from Aalborg University Massimo Pizzol and Flora Champetier welcomed the consortium members and offered an overview of the ALIGNED project status.

After the introduction, the consortium members leading the LCA and environmental insights in many sectors, such as INSAT, INRAE, the University of Antwerpen, BTG, UTEXBEL, The Aalborg University, and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology showed its action during the first 6 months and its upcoming actions. Once the first project status was done, the partners welcomed Algae 4 Future and INRAE as new consortium members.

Afterwards, Sustainable Innovations Europe shared the Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation results from the first months, highlighting the excellent performance and brand awareness of the project with all the stakeholders involved.

Once the communications update was made, the stakeholder’s engagement was the BTG’s topic presentation, highlighting the Consultation Rounds results, showing the main insights obtained and the next ones ahead. Finally, the Aalborg University coordination team took the floor of this online meeting to set the next steps and make the wrap-up of the meeting.

In the words of Massimo Pizzol, Technical Coordinator of the ALIGNED project: “These first months of activity showed us how collaboration could help us to achieve a new and enhanced method for LCA planning in bio-based sectors. We are excited about our upcoming actions, and I am sure that we’ll get many excellent insights to achieve the ALIGNED project purpose”.

Aligned_333EcosystexWebinar

ALIGNED AS SPEAKER IN THE ECOSYSTEX 3RD DISSEMINATION WEBINAR

On 31 March 2023, The European Technology Platform for the Future of Textiles and Clothing (Textile ETP) organised the “3rd ECOSYSTEX Dissemination Webinar”, where the ALIGNED project was highlighted, among other relevant initiatives such as WhiteCycle and BioTEN. During this event, both projects presented their aims and objectives, and report on their latest progress and developments.

There, Marisa Groenestege, from BTG Group, was in charge of providing a short presentation of the ALIGNED project, including its objectives, expected outcomes, and sectors of interest.

In the words of Marisa Groenestege: “The ALIGNED project is one of the answers to the EU’s call to improve the environmental performance of Construction, Woodworking, Textiles, Pulp and Paper and Biochemicals. We believe that bioeconomy and bio-based products hold the promise of potentially reversing climate change restoring biodiversity and protecting air, water and soil quality of the World”.

ECOSYSTEX is an initiative of the Research Executive Agency of the European Commission (REA), the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) and the Circular-Biobased Europe Joint Undertaking to accelerate collaboration in textile sustainability.

Full 3rd ECOSYSTEX Dissemination Webinar.