Project description
A boost for Europe’s circular bio-economy
Every year, over 900 million tonnes of waste biomass is produced, and nearly all of it (98 %) ends up in landfills, incinerators, or open dumps. The 2023 Circularity Gap Report reveals a global economy merely 7.2 % circular. Fortunately, the EU holds immense potential to convert this waste into valuable bio-based products, creating up to 10 times more jobs and 4-9 times more added value than energy use. Unfortunately, circular business models in bio-economy face hurdles, from fragmented supply chains to public acceptance. The EU-funded PRIMED project aims to tackle this issue by integrating primary producers into novel bio-economy value chains, fostering collaboration, and leveraging advanced bio-refineries in five living labs.
Objective
The EU has a significant amount of waste biomass available, more than 900 million tons per year, and 98% of this material ends up in landfill, incinerators, or rotting in open dumps. According to the 2023 Circularity Gap Report, the global economy is now only 7.2% circular.
The EU has great potential to convert bio-waste into bio-based products that can be used in multiple bio-applications. This revalorisation can directly support 5-10 times more employment and generate 4-9 times more added value than energy use.
Circular Business Models in Bioeconomy (CBMB) face many challenges to become sustainable and profitable. Firstly, primary producers, the owners of the valuable feedstock, are often not integrated into the bioeconomy value chains, and they are often small scale and are fragmented, reducing their ability to negotiate with those higher up the value chain. The result is a suboptimal distribution of benefits and incentives. The main challenges in designing CBMB consist of:
- lack of knowledge sharing and collaboration between stakeholders
- need for new supply chains and logistical networks
- difficult scale up of innovative technologies
- understanding of the potential synergies and symbiotic relationships between sectors
- overcoming poor public acceptance
- complex and fragmented policy schemes,
As a result of this, there is a lack of demonstrated and replicable systemic bio-solutions for the territorial deployment of the circular bioeconomy.
The PRIMED Project
PRIMED will co-create innovative forms of cooperation to integrate primary producers in novel bioeconomy value chains with a multi-actor approach. To do so, PRIMED will develop novel CBMB to produce high-value bio-based products through advanced biorefineries, and will demonstrate them in five Living Labs (LLab):
PRIMED will also empower multi-actors to co-design a collaborative ecosystem to accelerate the bioeconomy, with an Open Access knowledge hub and toolkit (PRIMED digital toolbox).
Fields of science
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementbusiness models
- social scienceseconomics and businesseconomicsbioeconomy
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementemployment
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwaste managementwaste treatment processes
- agricultural sciencesagricultural biotechnologybiomass
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
44801 Bochum
Germany