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ALIGNED’s Second General Assembly in Antwerp

In the heart of Antwerp, Belgium, the ALIGNED consortium celebrated its second general assembly meeting.

Organizers from Aalborg University, Massimo Pizzol, and Flora Champetier warmly greeted fellow consortium members. The event celebrated past achievements and offered insights into the project’s status.

The meeting, last September 5th, marked a significant gathering of consortium members. The event encompassed a range of crucial topics, commencing with Aalborg University’s presentation of the project’s present status and trajectory.

BTG contributed vital insights from sector data descriptions, while consortium members critically evaluated methodologies employed. A dynamic dialogue unfolded among participants like OLEON, FOR, UTEX, CENT, KING, BLOOM, and A4F, centring on challenges and valuable takeaways.

Updates on Work Packages 2-3, 4-6, and 9, alongside a dedicated exploitation workshop led by Sustainable Innovations Europe (SIE), highlighted the project’s comprehensive approach. Wrapping up the meeting, Aalborg University’s coordination team outlined upcoming steps, fostering a sense of unity and progress as ALIGNED looks to the future.

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ALIGNED and CALIMERO Projects Joined Forces at LCM 2023

The International Conference on Life Cycle Management 2023 conference held in Lille, France witnessed the remarkable joint presentation between ALIGNED and CALIMERO projects.

These two Horizon Europe-funded projects presented the side event ‘Improving sustainability performance of bio-based industries using advanced life cycle thinking approaches’, at the 11th International Conference on LCM and made significant strides in enhancing sustainability practices in the construction, woodworking, biochemicals, pulp and paper, and textile sectors.

Massimo Pizzol, professor at Aalborg University and the Project Coordinator of the ALIGNED project together with some other members presented the workshop aimed to maximize the project’s impact and foster widespread adoption of sustainable practices within the bio-based sector.

Also, Nariê Rinke D. de Souza from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) presented an overview of the European chemical sector, highlighting the sustainability practices and bio-based opportunities with the poster “Assessing biomass sustainability potentials in the chemicals and materials sector”.

These projects not only drove innovation but also fostered collaboration among diverse stakeholders to create a more sustainable future.

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ALIGNED PARTICIPATES IN A WORKSHOP ORGANISED BY SUSTRACK DURING THE EU GREEN WEEK

The ALIGNED project and SUSTRACK project continue their partnership to provide better, shared knowledge about standardisation, certification, labelling and monitoring the Life Cycle Assessment and other related disciplines. Last week, in the context of the EU Green Week, Massimo Pizzol, from Aalborg University, took the floor to represent ALIGNED during the workshop “Limits, barriers and solutions to boost the transition towards a circular bio-based economy” organised by the SUSTRACK project.  

Science Approach to Close Sustainability

The SUSTRACK work is looking for the development of a comprehensive literature research on the limits of the linear fossil-based economy, and barriers to the sustainable transition. Within this framework, the ALIGNED project, as a focus group participant, had the opportunity to share its findings, and insights associated with its approach related to Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in five different bio-based sectors. Several stakeholders that took place in this event had the opportunity to make their voices heard and identify, discuss, consolidate, and prioritize the identified barriers, acquiring valuable insights about a sustainable transition in several industries.

In the words of Massimo Pizzol, the ALIGNED project technical coordinator: “The EU Green Week provides us with a special framework to highlight our efforts to develop a common, and enhanced knowledge of different scientific methodologies. We want to express our congratulations to the SUSTRACK project for this workshop, which has provided many valuable insights to all the stakeholders involved in this joint effort that is a sustainable transition in different industries”.

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ALIGNED AS A SPEAKER IN THE SEAMARK FORUM

Last week, Massimo Pizzol, professor at Aalborg University and the Project Coordinator of the ALIGNED project had the opportunity to participate in the SEAMARK project Forum to introduce the Aligned Project in the framework of “LCA for the emerging blue and green bioeconomy: application to seaweed products and beyond”.

The event was organised by the European Project SEAMARK (Horizon Europe under contract no. 101060379), due to its First Consortium Meeting in Aarhus (Denmark), in the Aahrus University Facilities. During its intervention, Prof. Massimo Pizzol showcased an overview of LCA of seaweed-based products, shared some good practices in LCA of emerging technologies (blue-bioeconomy and beyond), and highlighted several connections between SEAMARK, ALIGNED and other related initiatives that are facing LCA assessment.

In the words of Pizzol: “We are delighted to join the First Consortium Meeting of the SEAMARK project. Join forces and efforts to enhance the LCA assessment and current methodologies will help us to make better, and more sustainable decisions in all industries. From the ALIGNED project, I want to thank the SEAMARK project coordination for the opportunity to share our best practices and learnings. We will look forward to joint actions”.

The SEAMARK project aims to upscale circular ocean seaweed cultivation and land-based integrated multitrophic aquaculture (IMTA) systems and develop novel processing methods involving fermentation and biotransformation into twelve innovative seaweed-based products. The partners of SeaMark are from 12 countries in Europe and each has in-depth specialist expertise in one or more areas that are required to develop the seaweed value chain. The active involvement of 9 SMEs and 3 larger enterprises guarantees the commercial exploitation and implementation of the results generated by the SeaMark project through a market-driven approach.

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ALIGNED AS SPEAKER IN A WEBINAR ORGANISED BY BIOECONOMY FOR CHANGE

Last week, Massimo Pizzol, professor at Aalborg University and the Project Coordinator of the ALIGNED project had the opportunity to participate in an online seminar to introduce the Aligned Project in the framework of “Aligning life cycle assessment methods and bio-based sectors for improved environmental performance”.

The event was organised by Bioeconomy for Change, one of the largest research societies in France in the Bioeconomy sector. The intervention was due to the participation of the ALIGNED project in the workgroup “LCA for Bio-based groups and its methodology”.

Bioeconomy for Change has a team of 35 specialists working for more than 500 members, from upstream agriculture to the marketing of finished products. The ambition of the B4C network is to make France one of the world’s leaders in the development of biomass, among other Bioeconomy fields of action.

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ALIGNED PARTICIPATES IN THE SETAC 33RD ANNUAL MEETING IN DUBLIN

During the first days of May, Agneta Ghose, Assistant Professor at Aalborg University and ALIGNED project member participated in the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 33rd Annual Meeting in Dublin, representing the initiative about the latest trends of LCA and Science management. This event is the largest meeting on environmental toxicology and chemistry in Europe.

ALIGNED: A framework for the LCA of bio-based products

In the framework of poster presentations, the ALIGNED project was showcased on May 1 in the Forum-Exhibition Hall in the Convention Centre of Dublin. There, Agneta Ghose presented the goals, purpose and actions of the initiative and made a solid networking with the attendees.

ALIGNED in the session “LCA as an Effective Tool in Decision-making”

On May 2, Ghose participated in the platform presentation “LCA as an Effective Tool in Decision-making” celebrated in the Liffey Hall from the Convention Centre of Dublin, with the title: “Is data sharing in LCA FAIR?”, presented the project and the importance and needs for FAIR data sharing in the LCA domain.

In the words of Agneta Ghose, from Aalborg University: “The presence of the ALIGNED project at the last SETAC Annual Meeting was fantastic. Having the opportunity to chair different sessions and have fruitful discussions on the importance of using LCA as an effective tool for decision-making, will be helpful for the progress of our project. We are delighted to have had the opportunity to discuss and share our views on methodologies, tools, and interpretations of the complexities of the results in order to make better decisions”.

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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”.

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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.

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ALIGNED AS SPEAKER IN THE SUSTRACK MOBILIZATION AND MUTUAL LEARNING (MML) WORKSHOP

The SUSTRACK project and the European Bioeconomy Network (EuBioNet), have created a working group on “Standardisation, certification, labelling and monitoring”.

As part of the collaboration among different projects, SUSTRACK hosted a mobilization and mutual learning (MML) workshop on 14th of February 2023 from 10.00 to 12.00 CET (online).

Some of the objectives of this workshop were:

  • Facilitate the awareness and knowledge exchange among the projects of the working group;
  • Discuss collaboration opportunities and joint activities;
  • Define common action plans.

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