The results of REINVENT show the need for broad and sequential strategies that involve changes in consumption, improved materials efficiency, and electrification of primary materials production including the use of hydrogen. The project has identified a need for industry actors to adopt and enforce targets across their supply chains that are in line with the Paris Agreement, for policymakers to require design for materials efficiency and circularity throughout value chains, and for researchers to scrutinise a larger ensemble of decarbonisation scenarios, including non-technological as well as technological solutions.
For industry, electrification means stronger couplings with an increasingly renewables-based power systems, as well as new couplings between subsectors necessitated by increased circularity. A shift from fossil feedstock for plastics is a case in point. Increased mechanical and chemical recycling, as well as demand for fossil-free hydrogen and carbon for virgin plastics, will create new value chains and couplings. In all sectors, the options of materials efficiency and demand management are under-utilised and much of the attention from industry and policy is focused on energy efficiency and fuel-shifting in primary production, and to some extent improved recycling.
To capture the breadth of the results and translate them to a broader audience we have boiled them down to recommendations. To make zero emissions happen, the following needs to be done by policymakers, research and industry, respectively.
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Policy needs to:
• Provide directionality, taking into account the whole economy and value chains
• Set goals that require action from industry, across the value chain, from production to consumption
• Recognise that difficult choices need to be made
• Lead the development of markets for new green products and services using zero-carbon materials
• Require design for materials efficiency and circularity throughout value chains
• Ensure not only ‘greening of finance’ but that green solutions get financed
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Research needs to:
• Imagine the future of production and consumption in new ways – what is needed in our lives in 2050 and why
• Scrutinise a larger ensemble of decarbonisation scenarios, including both technological and non-technological solutions
• Develop modelling approaches to take into account trends of shifting demand and circular economy
• Explore the potential of technological innovations beyond technological feasibility and examine their political, financial and cultural futures
• Investigate how demand for material use can be reduced whilst maintaining diverse forms of the good life
• Understand why resistance to change emerges and how the power of movements can be harnessed
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Industry needs to:
• Adopt and enforce targets across its supply chains that are in line with the Paris Agreement
• Make no new investments that rely on fossil fuels, whether for feedstock or energy
• Extend knowledge bases and collaborations into new sectors and domains
• Support and invest in electrification based on renewable energy
• Reduce demand for energy and materials, throughout the lifecycle of products
Research insights from REINVENT and all documentation can be found on its website:
https://www.reinvent-project.eu/documentation(opens in new window).
