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ALIGNED’s Second General Assembly in Antwerp

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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

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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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CONSULTATION ROUND INISIGHTS: INTERVIEW WITH MARISA GROENESTEGE FROM BTG

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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

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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 SUSTRACK MOBILIZATION AND MUTUAL LEARNING (MML) WORKSHOP

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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.

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THE ALIGNED PROJECT MEMBER OF ECOSYSTEX, A JOINT INITIATIVE TO ACCELERATE COLLABORATION IN TEXTILE SUSTAINABILITY

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

The main objectives behind this initiative will focus on:

  • Interproject collaboration to share best practices and exchange new knowledge.
  • Engagement with policymakers to provide support in designing and implementing effective policies and programmes
  • Dissemination to ensure the interested, public expert community can be informed about the latest developments and results of EU research and innovation projects addressing textile sustainability and circularity.

Collaboration between academics, technological developers, leaders in the textile sector, and other stakeholders from around Europe is an important aspect of ECOSYSTEX. The mission of ECOSYSTEX is to establish itself as the principal knowledge center in Europe and the premier source of up-to-date knowledge on all topics pertaining to the circularity and sustainability of the textile industry.

The ALIGNED project is part of this group since our initiative is collaborating with different industries and representatives from five Bio-Based sectors: Construction, Woodworking, Pulp and Paper, Bio Chemicals and Textile which is the sector where ECOSYSTEX will work on.

Know more information on the ECOSYSTEX LinkedIn Profile

Sources: https://textile-platform.eu/ecosystex

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How will ALIGNED and CALIMERO contribute to improving the Life Cycle Assessment methodology in five bio-based sectors?

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The ALIGNED and CALIMERO projects aim to improve the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology in five bio-based sectors: construction, woodworking, biochemicals, pulp and paper, and textile. The ALIGNED project focuses on harmonizing assessment methods by developing tools to understand the environmental and social impact of producing biobased products, and testing these methods through collaboration with industrial partners. CALIMERO aims to develop a comprehensive Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) methodology that addresses relevant issues for bio-based systems such as dynamic carbon accounting, impacts on biodiversity, and socio-economic trade-offs.

The ALIGNED and CALIMERO projects share several synergies, including the involvement of common stakeholders and the coordination of harmonization efforts. Both projects aim to reach industry, consultants, policymakers, and the European Commission and will collaborate on events to maximize outreach.

The CALIMERO project will develop a toolbox to assess industrial case studies from the five targeted bio-based sectors and will propose, simulate, and analyze plant-level solutions using multi-objective optimization with sustainability criteria. This will provide decision-makers with evidence-based recommendations on how to improve the sustainability performance of bio-based industries in Europe. Similarly, the ALIGNED project will provide a methodological framework and an ecosystem of modelling approaches and tools for the assessment of bio-based products in the five sectors.

“I see several potential synergies with the sister-project CALIMERO. First of all, we can learn from each other regarding how to conduct the very process of harmonization of methods. In ALIGNED this is done via scientific consensus, which means that the researchers in the group select methods based on their experience and a set of quality criteria, and then this selection is discussed together in the consortium, but we might benefit from including CALIMERO in this process and by comparing with their approach” states Massimo Pizzol, ALIGNED Project Coordinator

The results of these projects will support initiatives such as the European Union Industrial Policy Strategy, the European Green Deal, the 2030 Climate Target Plan, and the Bioeconomy strategy. The development of a harmonized LCSA methodology that considers environmental, economic, and social objectives from a life cycle perspective will provide the bio-based industries with a common and integrated tool to assess and improve their sustainability performance, ultimately leading to a greener and more sustainable Europe.

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THE ALIGNED PROJECT IS PRESENTED DURING A LCA SEMINAR ORGANISED BY THE IDA

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On February 8, Massimo Pizzol professor at Aalborg University and the project coordinator of the ALIGNED project, had the opportunity to give a seminar in the framework of “Prospective assessment and uncertainty in LCA for technology development”.

The event was organised by The Danish Society of Engineers (IDA) at the IDA Conference centre in Copenhagen, Denmark. There, Massimo explained how environmental life-cycle assessment has an important role to play in the transition to a greener and more sustainable society and how we can improve the uses of Life Cicle Assessments (LCA) in the early development phases of new technologies. In this context, Massimo introduced the ALIGNED project and the upcoming work with low-TRL biobased technologies for lignin valorisation, and with uncertainty analysis, within ALIGNED.

The Danish Society of Engineers (IDA) is a professional association for technology natural sciences an IT specialist with over 140000 members.

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ALIGNED, part of the GRETE Network

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We have been invited by the GRETE project to join their Networking space. This project is focused on developing innovative technologies for the first part of the wood-to-textile value chain.

As part of this network, stakeholders involved in textile and biobased industries can be connected and share their expertise and experience from other similar initiatives. It is a platform for knowledge sharing and discussions, that facilitates the identification of synergies and fosters exploitation activities.

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Consultation rounds – we want to hear from you

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The ALIGNED project is excited to announce a new section on our website dedicated to gaining further insights into the five bio-based sectors within our project: construction, woodworking, textiles, pulp and paper, and biochemicals.

To ensure that our project accurately represents and benefits each sector, we will be holding sector consultations. These consultations give representatives from these five sectors the opportunity to have a direct impact on the shape of the ALIGNED project by sharing their knowledge and experience.

Specifically, the consultations will focus on environmental assessments, particularly on Life Cycle Assessments (LCA), and how they apply to the whole sector. This information will be used to create fitting recommendations for each sector.

For each of the five sectors, there will be two consultation rounds. The first round will be held near the start of our project to gather information and input from the sector, and the second round will be held near the end of the project to give the sector the opportunity to comment on and value our results.

We encourage representatives from the construction, woodworking, textiles, pulp and paper, and biochemicals sectors to participate in these consultations and help shape the future of our project.

Please visit our new section for more information and to participate in the sector consultation that applies to you. Together, we can create a sustainable future for our bio-based sectors.