From the beginning of D4EU, the project partners have created a unique project environment as the consortium brought together researchers and industrial decision makers along the value chains. The industrial partners committed to apply research results and to utilize the dendromass for markets in the bio-economy.
Generally, the access to agricultural land has been challenging for SRC operators under the given legal and structural conditions as well as with regard to unexpected economic changes due to COVID19-related and multi-crisis conditions in the later project years. Hence, the objective of successful acquisition and contracting of marginal agricultural land under attractive conditions for farmers and landowners has been very important throughout the entire project implementation period. The SRC operating partner has been responding with maximum possible effort for land acquisition. To date, more than 1,250 ha of SRC are established on marginal or formerly unused land around the largest industrial partner’s board production plant in West Slovakia. All SRCs planted in Slovakia under D4EU are FSC certified. A dedicated, accompanying biodiversity monitoring by an NGO and other applied-level research on the environmental impact provided a credible data basis for ensuring the ecological sustainability achievements of D4EU.
For the economic sustainability, the availability of appropriate harvesting machinery is an important precondition. Within D4EU, European-scale field trials were finalised that involved also service and machine providers, for instance the industrial harvesting trials. Even beyond the original objectives, specific machine technology was compiled, field logistics were optimized, and a delimbing machine was developed that allowed an improved SRC harvesting technology under the given conditions of D4EU.
In the later phase of the project, the industrial partners successfully organized and demonstrated industrial-scale production of the dendromass and the final setup of value chains including dendromass delivery. The new bio-based materials (NBBMs) were produced at high Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs). For all four NBBMs and the connected production processes, a Life Cycle Assessment has been implemented.
All research data acquisition in D4EU and the final data evaluation has been carried out, for instance with regard to physiological characterisation of the operational poplar clones, to wood anatomical and wood density characteristics, to site evaluation and growth modelling or to SRC-site interaction.
The promising results of D4EU in diversifying the Slovakian agriculture and in contributing to the implementation of the EU’s Bioeconomy Strategy have been widely disseminated. For instance, a final project conference has been organized as a side-event of the EU Bioeconomy Conference in Brussels 2022, a project-related special issue has been published in an international scientific journal, different stakeholder-specific website contents in relevant project languages, videos and social media activities have been maintained, and knowledge has been provided to students in academic environments.
