Networking

The Biorefine Cluster Europe interconnects projects and people within the domain of biobased resource recovery, striving to contribute to a more sustainable resource management in the framework of circular economy systems. The competence focus lies within the biorefinery sector: the refinement of chemicals, materials, energy and products from biobased waste streams. It can be subdivided in four categories:

• Biobased (waste)streams as an input for the circular economy
• Bioprocesses
• Sustainable bio-energy production in its various shapes and forms
• Resource Recovery: extracting minerals, chemicals, water and materials from biomass

The objectives of BCE are to

• Strengthen interaction between projects involved
• Foster dissemination and stakeholders outreach (triple helix approach)
• Enhance research, policy & business development
• Identifying gaps in knowledge and addressing them through new project development

Rural Bioeconomy Alliance (RBA) is a cluster of European-funded projects aimed at accelerating and supporting the development of circular rural Bioeconomy initiatives in the EU. With a focus on rural sustainable circular bioeconomy initiatives, the RBA investigates, develops and analyses success stories, best practices, pilots, including ways to increase the adoption of circular bioeconomy concepts, mainly in rural areas. The goal of the cluster is to speed up growth of bioeconomy by sharing knowledge on project outcomes and supporting dissemination and communication activities related to the existing knowledge of bioeconomy.

Empowering bioeconomy projects by deploying Technical, Business, Regulatory and Social assistance services. ToBeReaL is a strategic 5-year European partnership designed to assist bioeconomy projects across diverse bio-based value chains. ToBeReaL is committed to adopting a comprehensive strategy to empower the bioeconomy sector. It offers specialized expertise and strategic support across four key verticals: Technical, Business & Financial, Regulatory & Legal, and Social Innovation. This initiative targets all EU regions, with a special emphasis on areas where the bioeconomy is less developed, ensuring a broad and inclusive approach.

The BOOST4BIOEAST (B4B) project was developed to support the BIOEAST Initiative, and aims to empower national stakeholders in the Central Eastern European and Baltic countries for the development of national bioeconomy action plans and to build long-lasting structures and spaces of dialogue for national and macro-regional cooperation. The project follows the footsteps of its predecessor, the BIOEASTsUP H2020 project, building upon its outcomes that laid the foundation for macro-regional networking among bioeconomy experts and policymakers through the development of its Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (BIOEAST SRIA) and 11 Bioeconomy Concept Papers of 2022.

The bioeconomy, which uses renewable biological resources and technologies to produce food, materials, or energy, can play a crucial role in shaping structural change. It has the potential to create new value networks, thereby promoting knowledge-based growth and jobs, ecosystem revitalisation and resilience, resource efficiency and circularity, and innovation, while taking into account the context-specific economic, social and environmental conditions of a region. However, regional stakeholders seeking to unlock this transition potential of the bioeconomy often lack the necessary operational know-how, frameworks and financial support. Driven by the shift towards sustainable development, regions with carbon-intensive economies, such as coal mining, intensive agriculture, forestry, fisheries and peat production, are undergoing significant structural change. The negative impacts can be severe, including economic disruption, unemployment, social strain, and regional inequalities. BIO2REG is a three-year European project that aims to enable the systemic transformation of greenhouse gas-intensive regions into bioeconomy model regions. Nine partners are committed to developing concrete measures to enable sustainable bioeconomic transitions in European regions.

Primary production in agriculture and forestry represents an essential part of the European circular bioeconomy. However, the involvement of primary producers in the circular bio-based economy is still limited, and the benefits are in most cases not fairly distributed along the value chain, to the disadvantage of primary producers. Fair and sustainable business models that create opportunities for rural entrepreneurship and develop new forms of successful rural business are therefore needed. C4B business models will be designed to balance the share of power and profits across novel bio-based value chains to accelerate the development of rural communities and their economic viability and enhance the cooperation among farmers, foresters and industry.

CIRCLE will demonstrate at industrial scale a first-of-its-kind retrofitted biorefinery for the valorisation of food waste streams and additional biomasses into high-value bio-based chemicals and intermediates, lactic acid (LA), lactate salts (LS) and polylactic acid (PLA)-based. These will be produced in the CIRCLE Flagship which will be built by retrofitting of an existing biogas plant.

The TERRIFIC project aims to reform the packaging sector with bio-based solutions that enhance performance, circularity, and resource efficiency throughout the entire value chain, boosting the development of a bioeconomy model able to decouple the European development from the use of resources. TERRIFIC flagship biobased products showcase the potential of bioeconomy to drive ecological transition, circularity, and to reach important goals in pollution prevention and decarbonization.

BBioNets relies on, promotes, and further advances the work carried out by EIP-AGRI Operational Groups (OGs) with respect to management and/or processing of agricultural and forest biomass with Bio-Based Technologies (BBTs). Applying the quintuple helix model and a multi-actor approach both within the consortium itself and on the ground activities, BBioNets has set up 6 regional Forest and Agriculture Networks - FANs (IE, EL, ES, IT, PL, CZ) that ensure a balanced representation of all AKIS stakeholders. Through co-creation and joint actions, FANs have identified local needs, prioritised specific BBTs, and will benefit from and validate knowledge material developed by the consortium, building on previous OG and EU-funded project results.

CALIMERO is a European Project whose goal is to create a common framework for the Life Cycle Assessment methodologies of certain bio-based industries’ sectors. Assessing their processes will help identifying the main sources of pollutants and analysing potential solutions. CALIMERO aims to create a common framework for all bio-based industries to evolve in terms of sustainability working with PEF indicators as well as with those proposed by CALIMERO. The presence of bio-based industries from five different sectors –construction, woodworking, textile, pulp & paper and biochemicals– in the consortium provides a valuable perspective of the industries’ needs towards sustainability. With them committed to this frame, it is possible to reduce environmental impacts by identifying the main sources of pollutants and analysing potential solutions, considering additionally economic and social dimensions. And, with more sustainable industries, Europe can become a greener and more resilient continent.

ADVagroMED is a sustainable farming initiative that harnesses insect-based solutions tailored to Mediterranean climates. It uses black soldier fly and yellow mealworm larvae to convert agricultural by-products into valuable resources. The larvae serve as high-protein poultry feed, while the frass is repurposed as organic fertilizer. This project unites partners across Southern Europe and North Africa under the Horizon 2020 PRIMA program to promote circular agro-ecology.

Considering limited land and biological resources in the EU, sustainable and just development of industrial bio-based systems calls for special attention to material circularity, carbon emissions, & iLUC risks of bio-based systems, as well as social objectives. The BIORADAR Project, funded and supported by the EU’s Horizon Europe programme and the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU), aims to help organisations, policymakers and investors have the necessary information to step towards a more sustainable, bio-based economic model by taking a system perspective to fill the indicator gaps in material circularity and evaluating the environmental and social impacts of industrial bio-based systems by developing digital monitoring tools that will provide benchmarks and a self-assessment platform for bio-based industries.

A consortium of 9 partners with key expertise and a wide network of key external stakeholders, bringing together 5 EU countries (IT, ES, BE, NL, DE) aiming at revolutionising the EU economy a linear to a circular one contributing to deliver bio-based solutions with reduced environmental impacts on soil, water and air quality.

The transition from linear fossil-based systems to circular and bio-based systems represents an opportunity and a suitable pathway for achieving several SDGs. Circular bio-based systems depict a great opportunity to reconcile sustainable long-term growth with environmental protection through the prudent use of renewable resources for industrial purposes. This needed transition is a complex process, which does not simply require innovative technologies from the supply-side, but also societal transformations based on a multi-actor process. The circular bioeconomy meta-sector may be a good candidate to put forward a new economic model, which requires transformative policies, purposeful innovation, access to finance, risk-taking capacity as well as new and sustainable business models and markets. A critical assessment of the environmental, social and economic impacts of the current linear fossil-based economy, as well as of the improvement potential associated with circular bio-based systems, is needed to underpin the identification of policy priorities. SUSTRACK is a three year project aimed at supporting policymakers in their efforts to develop sustainable pathways to replace fossil and carbon-intensive systems with sustainable circular biobased systems at the EU and regional scale, contributing to achieving the European Green Deal’s objectives.

ROBIN is a cross-national 3-year long Coordination and Support Action (01/09/2022- 31/08/2025), supported by the European Union within the framework of the Horizon Europe programme. ROBIN aims to empower Europe’s regions to adapt their governance models and structures in ways that accelerate the achievement of their circular bioeconomy targets while promoting social innovation and accounting for different territorial contexts.

LCA4BIO project aims at developing and validating a new set of improved, harmonized, precise, reliable and applicable assessment methodologies to properly evaluate environmental impacts and circularity in bio-based systems, that can be applied in certification schemes, thus enabling the international trade of this type of products. Additionally, LCA4BIO will address the development of new prospective life cycle assessment methodologies, considering up-scaling and future scenarios via Integrated Assessment Models with manageable levels of uncertainty, for an accurate comparison between potential environmental impacts of emerging bio-based technologies and current systems in the market. Website: https://lca4bioproject.eu/

The project aims to gather together 6 organizations from the EU countries and Western Balkan countries with a single aim to promote mushroom farming as a sustainable agricultural method that support food security, circular economy, and rural development. It will have a duration of 24 months and the main activities are researching, training and education of teachers and trainers in VET to ensure quality and effective learning experiences for both young and adult learners in the agriculture sector.

The EU-funded ESCIB project aims to help the European bio-based economy by developing crucial assessment methodologies that will allow faster and more accurate assessments of their value chains. With the involvement of five innovative industry partners in the consortium, which produce bio-based products in different sectors including packaging, textiles, chemicals and building products , ESCIB will ensure high applicability of the method which can be used by certification organisations to label and certify products for the benefit of consumers and society. Finally, the results will give orientations for research and innovation programmes in the bio-based sectors.

BioReCer (Biological Resources Certifications Schemes) aims at assessing and complementing current certification schemes for biological resources according to the new EU sustainability goals to enhance bio-based circular systems. This will be achieved by including new criteria that align with EU taxonomy and EU corporate due diligence regulations into guidelines for certifying biological resources’ sustainability, origin, tracking and traceability (T&T), and by ensuring applicability at EU and global scale. By promoting the sustainability and trade of biological resources, BioReCer will increase the added value, use, as well as social acceptance of bio-based products.

SALIENCE – Soil Alliance: Connecting Stakeholders for Soil Health and Sustainable Development in Rural Mediterranean Regions is a European initiative aimed at promoting sustainable land management and soil health through community-led, inclusive, and participatory processes. Supported under the broader frameworks of GOV4ALL Project and REINFORCING, the project operates through three regional Living Labs, including Thyrea (Greece), and empowers rural communities to co-create visions for soil regeneration. With a strong emphasis on soil literacy, intergenerational learning, and collective design, SALIENCE helps bridge the gap between scientific knowledge and local action. Τhe project fosters collaboration between farmers, youth, scientists, and local authorities. Ultimately, SALIENCE contributes to the EU Soil Mission’s goal: ensuring 75% of EU soils are healthy by 2030.

BIOTRANSFORM provides European policymakers with an adequate assessment and policy development framework, knowledge base and expert support ecosystem to accelerate the transition from linear fossil-based systems to circular bio-based systems. It is therefore operating at the interface between the circular economy and the bioeconomy transitions.

CERES project is a national (Spanish) funded project aiming to develop circular economy technological solutions ready to market scalability. In this sense, the consortium is formed by Asturian partners that collaborate to define strategies to make use of Asturias biomass such as livestock residues, waste from dairy product production and organic urban waste to generate biopolymers, functional ingredients and fertilisers, among others. Coordinated by Grupo DEX