Renewable Matter #16

RENEWABLE MATTER

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INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE ON THE BIOECONOMY AND THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY 16 | May-June 2017 Bimonthly Publication Edizioni Ambiente

Interview with Walter Stahel: Long Live Objects!

•• Thomas Rau and Sabine Oberhuber: A Passport for Materials is Needed •• A Disunited Kingdom of Waste

Dossier Bioeconomy/France: Involvement Is the Winning Strategy •• Circle Economy, Making Beer with Leftover Bread •• French Window: Towards Circular Public Procurement

Watergrabbing: South Africa’s Dirty War •• Rethinking Fridges •• Fashion, Cannibals and Forks •• Symbiosis & Innovation

When the States Invade Canada •• The Hard Things to Say •• Jeans for Hire

WE HAVE TAKEN AN ASTONISHING WEIGHT O F F T H E S H O U L D E R S O F T H E F U T U R E.

At Ecopneus, we have recovered 1 million tonnes of end-of-life tyres, the weight of 8 cruise ships, in just 4 years.

And we have transformed them into something more. Thanks to ethical and transparent work, 100 million end-of-life tyres have made many athletes sweat and have fun becoming basketball courts, tennis courts and football fields.

They have reduced noise in offices, transforming themselves into sound-absorbing walls. They have protected thousands of children as shock absorbent rubber on playgrounds. They have covered kilometres of roads with rubberized asphalt and mitigated the vibrations of numerous tramway lines. They have given sustainable energy to companies in Italy and abroad.

But most of all, they have done something priceless: they have made our country a more liveable place for future generations.

- S

Circular Economy: Policies and Practices 3 - 5 July 2017 | Venice

Info & registrations bit.ly/circular_training

Registrations are open until 2 April 2017. Early bird fee available before 3 March 2017 Organisation and contact: info@acrplus.org - www.acrplus.org

YEARS ANNIVERSARY

Following the incredible success of Sardinia 2015 / Arts Edition, which saw the participation of 732 delegates from more than 70 different countries from all the continents, we are proud to announce the 30th Anniversary of Sardinia Symposia, the reference forum for the international community since 1987.

sardinia_2017 16th INTERNATIONAL WASTE MANAGEMENT AND LANDFILL SYMPOSIUM Forte Village / S. Margherita di Pula (CA) / Italy 2-6 October 2017

SEND YOUR ABSTRACT BY 1st MARCH ORGANISED BY

Submit your abstract for presentation at the Sardinia 2017!

Abstracts must be prepared using the abstract template available on the Official Symposium website and submitted to the Organising Secretariat no later than March 1st 2017 using the form available on www.sardiniasymposium.it/abstract-form.

Abstracts may be submitted for oral or poster presentation; offers of papers for workshops are also welcome.

All papers must be written and presented in English.

A considerable number of manuscripts will be selected and processed, following revision and updating, for publication in special thematic issues of Waste Management, the scientific journal with the highest IF (3.829) in the field, published by Elsevier.

SYMPOSIUM

IWWG - International Waste Working Group

Scientific Support: University of Padova (IT) Tongji University (CN) Technical University of Denmark (DK) Fukuoka University (JP) University of Central Florida (US) Hamburg Univ. of Technology (DE)

Oral sessions Specialised workshops 8 parallel tracks Training courses Poster sessions Companies exhibition

COMPANIES EXHIBITION

PARALLEL EVENTS

Networking B2B opportunities Meetings Advertising opportunities Companies Forum

Photo contest Seminars Practical design lab Round tables on EU Projects Photo Exhibition

SOCIAL EVENTS Welcome cocktail Concerts International football tournament Gala Dinner Awards Special Guest Country: activities and much more...

VENUE a wonderful working holiday at the world’s best luxury beach resort: elegant hotels / seafront suites / bungalows 21 restaurants / 10 swimming pools / sporting facilities / thermal health centre

CONTACTS

Eurowaste Srl Via Beato Pellegrino 23 35137 Padova - Italy tel +39 049 8726986 info@sardiniasymposium.it www.sardiniasymposium.it

Partners

ADI Design Index 2015 Selection

Media Partners

RENEWABLE MATTER Networking Partners

Supporters

arbon Tracker

Initiative

Patronages

Technical Partners

Printed by Geca Industrie Grafiche using mineral oil free vegetable-based inks.

Geca production system does not produce exhaust and all waste of our manufacture is introduced into a process of collection and recycling. www.gecaonline.it/uk

Printed on Crush ecological papers by Favini, made using process residues from organic products to replace up to 15% of virgin pulp: cover Crush Mais 250 gsm, text Crush Mais 120 gsm. www.favini.com/en

Events

Editorial

Sustainability Is Fashionable

by Antonio Cianciullo

P. Sukhdev, Corporation 2020: Transforming Business for Tomorrow’s World, Island Press 2012.

Food is now beyond debate. In just a few decades, the world of food has been turned upside down and a vision that can be defined as political – that is the capacity to connect different sectors, needs and companies – has become common practice amongst those approaching the food debate. Nowadays, the definition of a modern agricultural strategy often includes love for traditions, the desire to maintain social cohesion, marginal lands and biodiversity preservation, turnover expansion and tourism revival.

So, one of the defining characteristics of Italy’s brand has established itself as a driving force carrying with it the revival of local products, organic and biodynamic produce. Now it is the fashion’s turn. Certainly, fashion is not lagging behind judging from its competiveness capacity: figures prove quite the opposite and the very nature of this sector is characterized by a continuous evolution of sensitivity. But this topic can be tackled striking different chords.

Lately, the environmental one has been very popular.

This game started as a defence. Campaigns such as Greenpeace’s Detox helped focusing on the need to purify the system from unwelcome elements. The awareness of the health impacts of some toxic substances present both in clothes and in the environment started a transformation of production processes of the clothing industry still taking place and with different paces in different countries.

Now a new challenge is gathering momentum: not only introducing the environmental variable into the choice of materials used but also adopting it as a competitive edge.

The acceptance of this process cannot be taken for granted because resistance is building up on different fronts. One is skilfully highlighted in this issue of Renewable Matter in the article

by Marco Ricchetti who tackles this topic with a quote by John Elkington from the incipit of Cannibals with Forks: “Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?” In other words, is it progress if corporations fighting for supremacy adopt sustainable production models?

This provocation embodies widespread

suspicion also characterizing discussions on other extremely innovative production sectors. In theory, it is difficult to judge: it could be a wise precaution to bring greenwashing into the open; or it could be an ideological prejudice, a dogmatic stance against the industrial world. Pavan Sukhdev, the Indian economist who created the Teeb project on the value of ecosystems, in Corporation 2020, expressed a positive vision for the future of multinational organizations: “Over the last 2 years, green investments have grown by 61%, from $13.3 trillion in 2012 to $21.4 trillion in 2014. Old companies shed their skin, for instance Dow Chemical in Lousiana has invested in energy efficiency with a return equalling 204% over 13 years. And there are new companies such as Patagonia, Natura or Indian Infosys that have grown a lot by betting on social and environmental commitment.”

In the fashion industry how advanced is this process and how can it be coupled coherently with the circular economy’s perspective?

To answer this question we had to bring up basic data, that is the strong growth of material flow to feed this sector. +68% in the last 15 years: from 8 kg of textile fibres per capita to 15. With the ensuing consumption of water, energy and land to support this mechanism.

Faced with these figures, the proposal backed by our magazine is explained in a book just published, Neo-materials in the Circular Economy – Fashion (edited by M. Ricchetti, Edizioni Ambiente 2017, editor’s note). The work relates examples of sustainable use of materials in the fashion sector and analyses the topic from the use of non-renewable materials, the use of water resources and the impact of chemicals employed.

The fleeting grace of a fashion-show jacket might seem inconsequential and we might focus instead on cannibals with forks.

But if we take into consideration the bigger picture, the life cycle of what is used to make what we wear every day is more important: clothes have a remarkable environmental impact. And our choices can have a positive or negative outcome.

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16|May-June 2017 Contents

RENEWABLE MATTER INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE ON THE BIOECONOMY AND THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Antonio Cianciullo

7

Sustainability Is Fashionable

Emanuele Bompan

10

Stop Death (of Objects) Interview with Walter R. Stahel

Silvia Zamboni

15

A Kingdom Disunited by Waste Interview with Dominic Hogg

Antonella Ilaria Totaro

18

Closing the Circle is Just One Option Interview with Thomas Rau and Sabine Oberhuber

Emanuele Bompan

23

Water vs. Coal.

South Africa’s Filthy War

Mario Bonaccorso

32

Adrian Deboutière

40

Towards Circular Public Procurement in France

Shyaam Ramkumar

42

Brewing with Leftover Bread

Marco Ricchetti

47

Focus Fashion Fashion, Cannibals and Forks

www.renewablematter.eu ISSN 2385-2240 Reg. Tribunale di Milano n. 351 del 31/10/2014

Editorial Director Marco Moro Contributors Emanuele Bompan, Mario Bonaccorso, Ilaria Nicoletta Brambilla, Rudi Bressa, Daniela Bqain, Adrian Deboutière, Marc Delcourt, Julien Dugué, Boris Dumange, Sergio Ferraris, Federica Fragapane, Roberto Giovannini, Cristina Govoni, Marirosa Iannelli, Dominic Hogg, Ben Alexander Kennard, Achille Monegato, Sabine Oberhuber, Federico Pedrocchi, Fausto Podavini, Riccardo Pravettoni, Thomas Rau, Shyaam Ramkumar, Marco Ricchetti, Walter R. Stahel, Bav Tailor, Antonella Ilaria Totaro, Freija van Holsteijn, Silvia Zamboni

Think Tank

Editor-in-chief Antonio Cianciullo

Acknowledgments Katie Hans, Melanie Wijnands Managing Editor Maria Pia Terrosi Editorial Coordinator Paola Cristina Fraschini

Design & Art Direction Mauro Panzeri Layout & Infographics Michela Lazzaroni Translations Erminio Cella, Franco Lombini, Meg Anna Mullan, Mario Tadiello

Dossier France The Bioeconomy is the New Force de Frappe

Policy

Editing Paola Cristina Fraschini, Diego Tavazzi

edited by Institut de l’économie circulaire, Parigi

9

Executive Coordinator Anna Re

Antonella Ilaria Totaro

53

Focus Fashion Jeans for Rent

External Relations Manager (International) Federico Manca External Relations Manager (Italy) Anna Re

Rethinking the Function of the Fridge

Contact redazione@materiarinnovabile.it Edizioni Ambiente Via Natale Battaglia 10 20127 Milano, Italia t. +39 02 45487277 f. +39 02 45487333

65

Focus Paper DS Smith: The Power of Less

Advertising marketing@materiarinnovabile.it

68

Focus Paper Symbiosis & Innovation

Freija van Holsteijn

58

Ilaria N. Brambilla

Sergio Ferraris

Annual subscription, 6 paper issues Subscribe on-line at www.materiarinnovabile.it/moduloabbonamento This magazine is composed in Dejavu Pro by Ko Sliggers Published and printed in Italy at GECA S.r.l., San Giuliano Milanese (Mi) Copyright ŠEdizioni Ambiente 2017 All rights reserved

Rudi Bressa

70

Focus Paper Good Fibre Packaging

Rudi Bressa

72

Focus Paper From Sheets to Packaging to Newspapers

Silvia Zamboni

74

Roberto Giovannini

76

The Media Circle When the States Invade Canada

Federico Pedrocchi

77

Innovation Pills The Hard Things to Say

Columns

Case Studies

Press and Media Relations press@renewablematter.eu

The Double Life of Peach and Apricot Kernels

Cover The Greater Wax Moth (Galleria mellonella.

Linnaeus, 1758) is lepidopteran infesting beehives. It is capable to both eat and degrade polyethylene as demonstrated by a research study by the Biochemistry Department of Oxford University in collaboration with the Spanish Institute for Biomedicine and Biotechnologies in Cantabria (Paolo Bombelli, Christopher J. Howe, Federica Bertocchini), published for the first time in the magazine Current Biology (vol. 27-28, 24th April 2017).

Photo by Wayne Boo. Courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

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renewablematter 16. 2017

Stop Death (of Objects)

Interview with Walter R. Stahel

by Emanuele Bompan

Reuse, repair, remanufacturing, technological upgrading.

Starting from these concepts, Walter R. Stahel talks about objects’ life extension, the other side of the circular economy.

But a new relation with goods must be developed, an approach based on care, as opposed to the “disposable” attitude. There is also strong criticism against the EU’s Circular Economy Package.

Walter R. Stahel, architect, has been founder-director of the Product-Life Institute, the oldest established consultancy in Europe devoted to developing sustainable strategies and policies. Since 2013 he has been a full member of the Club of Rome.

He is visiting professor at the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences of the University of Surrey, and l’Institut EDDEC de Université, HEC et Polytechnique de Montréal.

If Ellen MacArthur is the dame of the circular economy, Walter R. Stahel (born June 5, 1946) can be well awarded the title of father of this economic model. Stahel has been influential in developing the field of sustainability, by advocating “service-life extension of goods – reuse, repair, remanufacture, technological upgrading” philosophies as they apply to industrialised economies.

If waste is one half of the circular model, with its closed loops and matter reincarnation, product life is the other half. Service-life extension of goods as a strategy of waste prevention, product-as-a-service and resource efficiency through the dematerialisation of the industrial economy are the pillars of his thought. Stahel devoted his life to developing those concepts, funding in 1982 the Product Life Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, a consultancy devoted to promote these ideas. His books The Performance Economy (Palgrave, 2010) is a huge collection of case studies where production and consumption performances are taken into account showing how performance is a key indicator for real circular businesses.

Now that the circular economy is a trending philosophy he is back on the scene and works closely with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Product-Life Institute, www.product-life.org

on further promoting his ideas with economic actors. Renewable Matter has interviewed him to better frame what the circular economy is and product life in 2017.

You are one of the founding fathers of the circular economy. What is your definition?

“An economy focused on managing stocks of human, natural and manufactured resources, maintaining the value of the stocks as assets, extending the service-life of objects and technologically by upgrading the manufactured stock as long as feasible.”

When did you realize that the linear economy was not the right development philosophy?

“In 1973, when Europe was suffering the first oil price shock and experiencing rising unemployment. I recommended the European Commission to research the potential for substituting manpower for energy.

And we started to look at matter.

The conclusion of the 1976 report [for the EC] by Geneviève Reday and myself was the definition of the circular economy as it still stands today. In 1981, we published the report as a book, Jobs for Tomorrow.”

Today there is frenzy around the concept of the circular economy. What are the risks? Can we face something similar to what happened with all the greenwashing that follow the introduction of the concept of the green economy?

“The main risk to the circular economy is scientific and technological progress.

If a superior technology is developed for goods – e.g. word processors versus typewriters or electric versus petrol cars – the old objects may still be reusable in another geographic context (countries without national electricity grid). If a superior technology is developed for materials – e.g. the Two-Teams project to manufacture paper (an innovative methodology to process paper promoted by The Confederation of European Paper Industries – CEPI, editor’s note) versus traditional paper making – recycling processes may be jeopardised. The success of a circular economy for consumer goods depends on caring, on people developing a new relationship with goods – function instead of fashion, a teddy-bear instead of a chewinggum attitude. Caring is a pre-requisite for managing any capital, be it natural, cultural, human or manufactured assets.”

You worked a lot on the topic of performance economy.

What are the key assumptions?

“I defined the Performance Economy in papers and articles in the 1990s as Functional Service Economy, and published the concept in my 2006 book The Performance Economy to make it accessible to a wider audience.

The Performance Economy sells the use of goods as services – e.g. hotels, taxis and public transport – as well as molecules as service – e.g. chemical leasing. By retaining the ownership of goods and their embodied resources, economic actors are forced to internalise all costs of risk and of waste, which provides a strong economic incentive for loss and waste prevention. In exchange, economic actors gain a resource security for the future. The Performance Economy is the most sustainable business model of the circular economy – in terms of social, ecologic and financial terms – but implies an unlimited liability for the performance of goods and materials.”

You have also carried out serious research around product life concept, and you also have a working group focusing on that.

What should product designers do today when they approach the design of a new product?

“Designers, including architects, have two limitations. They dream of immortality – which means things have to be new, unique and fashionable; and designers lose control over their goods at the point of sale. One can design

Think Tank a car, which will last for fifty years, but if the buyer loses control of the brand new car and crashes the vehicle against a wall, product-life is short. The best approach for designers is to develop systems solutions, physical objects as modular concepts with standardised components and virtual/digital instead of hardware solutions. In many cases this is a completely new challenge.”

Do you think researchers and designers are well aware of the product life extension philosophy?

“Product-life extension and the circular economy are concepts unknown to the schools and universities training economists and engineers for manufacturing optimisation – and to the experts leaving these schools.

Many SMEs and fleet managers such as railways, airlines and armed forces have embraced the knowledge and know-how of products’ life extension. One major challenge is to transfer this knowledge into all classrooms and boardrooms to speed up the shift to a circular economy.”

Fashion and planned obsolescence are two key enemies of a circular economy model. How can we overcome the artificial early death of goods?

“Technical solutions to overcome this are modular concepts with standardised components; commercial solutions are renting or leasing goods instead of selling them.

If ownership remains with the manufacturer or a fleet manager, fashion and obsolescence will bankrupt the owner – and he will be careful not to invest in such goods. Consumers turned users have a number of different solutions; to engage in repair cafés and similar social innovations in order to decouple themselves from manufacturers; or to exclusively rent or lease objects, such as handbags or garments, which also provides a high flexibility and choice; or to buy goods with a life-long guarantee – dozens exist in the market today.”

Product-as-a-service is a key element of the circular economy: what are the main challenges in terms of ownership and legal framework related to shifting from ownership consumption to renting/ leasing/sharing?

“The key elements to a circular economy are reuse and service-life extension loops for goods – e.g. eBay, repairs and remanufacturing, which are options open to the owner-user – and recycling loops for materials, an option open to waste managers.

Products as a service are a business model of the Performance Economy, which enable to intensify the utilisation of goods but necessitate retaining their ownership.

This is exclusively an option of manufacturers (like Rolls Royce selling power by the hour

instead of jet turbines) or fleet managers (airlines, shipping lines selling mobility services).”

Don’t you think that if we only use goods as service we lose some financial assets, therefore families might get poorer?

“People should buy goods that increase in value, e.g. houses, but rent goods, which decrease in value, e.g. cars, smartphones.

Families will therefore increase their financial assets in the long term by following this rule – let somebody else lose money on disposable goods. The Internet of Things is built on using goods as services – people already live deeply in a service economy without the feeling of getting robbed.”

What is your opinion on the EU Circular Economy Package?

“The EU Circular Economy Package is still based on the old linear economic thinking, which needs to be replaced by stock or asset consideration. On the resource side, it should promote resource preservation, not waste management strategies; it should strictly give preference to reuse and service-life extension of goods and components (stocks), following the objectives of the 2008 EU Waste Directive, and consider waste recycling (flow) as the last option. Consequently, the package should design incentive policies to turn today’s environmentally motivated waste managers into economically motivated resource managers, building up markets to return used goods and components back to manufacturers for reuse/ remanufacturing. Objectives expressed as recycling percentages (flows) should be replaced by maximum annual resource loss percentages (stock losses) – for short-lived goods these are worlds apart. On the social side, it ignores the job creation potential and the mechanisms to exploit this potential for waste prevention and regional and local development. And it ignores the key necessity to provide tools to shift the knowledge and know-how of the circular economy from SMEs and fleet managers to all classrooms and corporate boardrooms – a circular economy Erasmus programme for students and managers.”

Emanuele Bompan, an urban geographer and environmental journalist since 2008.

Together with Ilaria Brambilla he authored the book Che cos’è l’economia circolare (“What’s the circular economy”), Edizioni Ambiente, Milan 2016.

Product-life extension and the circular economy are concepts unknown to the schools and universities training economists and engineers for manufacturing optimisation.

13

Think Tank

A Kingdom Disunited

by Waste

Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae Tabula, 1631. In: Blaeu, G., Atlas Major, 1634 - 1672. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

Interview with Dominic Hogg

by Silvia Zamboni

With regard to waste, the United Kingdom does not seem to have either a distinct direction or an innovative vision.

As a result, the policies of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England are very different. The reasons why the outdated European hierarchy should be reconsidered.

Dominic Hogg – an honorary degree awarded by Oxford University and a PhD

by Cambridge University – supervised projects on the efficient use of resources and the circular economy for the governments of the United Kingdom, Scotland and Wales and the European Environment Agency, OECD and the European Commission. He is Chairman of Eunomia Research & Consulting.

Every year, in the United Kingdom, secondary raw materials and energy for a total of about £15 million are recovered from waste, but sadly, most of it goes overseas. While the country imports raw materials and energy, every year it exports about 50% (between 12 to 14 million tonnes) of materials obtained from recycling and 90% of refuse-derived fuels (RDFs) which saturate the excessively powerful incinerators installed in the EU countries.

And the annual puzzle of exports comes together with about 4 more millions of tonnes of secondary solid fuels (SSFs) sent to overseas cement factories.

Eunomia Research & Consulting, www.eunomia.co.uk

These are the data contained in the study A Resourceful Future, Expanding the UK Economy that Eunomia Research & Consulting – an economic-environmental consulting company – produced for SUEZ Recycling and Recovery UK, proposing an integrated plan of actions for the efficient use of resources, which would bring economic, occupational, environmental benefits as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“The UK’s current state of the art of the circular economy is anything but homogeneous,” points out Dominic Hogg,

Eunomia’s Chairman and a real international expert in multidisciplinary projects of waste management with an honorary degree under his belt awarded by the University of Oxford and a PhD in economy of technological development by the University of Cambridge.

“Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England are implementing very different and specific policies,” highlights Hogg. “The Welsh government, in particular, worked in close collaboration with local governments and companies in order to develop a new approach to the recycling activities and improve their performance, while in Scotland, where the increase in the recycling rate is less significant, the government is putting in place interesting initiatives for industries in order to back up the commitment to adopt measures in line with the circular economy.”

More specifically, what is the situation like in Wales and Scotland?

“In Wales, as to solid urban waste, the government started a technical support programme for municipalities, helping them to buy plants for the anaerobic treatment of organic waste and the spread of good practices for SMW’s collection. The aim is to increase the quality of fractions collected

15

16

renewablematter 16. 2017 Silvia Zamboni is a professional journalist specialized in energy and environmental issues.

She has authored books on good practices of the green economy, mobility and development.

A Resourceful Future – Expanding the UK Economy, www.eunomia. co.uk/reports-tools/aresourceful-futureexpanding-the-ukeconomy

If we are going to go down the alleyway of the circular economy, the number one priority must be recycling matter, saying goodbye to landfills and incinerators.

separately and recycling rates. Such policies led separate waste collection now to exceed 60% all over the country. As for Scotland, Zero Waste Scotland, the local movement is pushing for the introduction of measures in line with the circular economy through a specific programme aimed at SMEs. Furthermore, it promoted specific studies in the sector to assess how to make the country’s leading production sectors more circular.”

Such as?

“In the field of natural gas and oil rigs in the North Sea, they are researching into what they can do with them in the future.

And they are also trying to introduce the principles of the circular economy in the building sector. Glasgow, in particular, declared it intends to become a circular economy city, therefore local matter flows are under scrutiny. In Scotland many foundations are cropping up in order to back up the circular economy. So, the situation is really interesting, except for SUW, as I have already mentioned, where the situation is not as positive as in Wales and it evolves more slowly.”

How would you define the state of the art of the circular economy in England?

“Hopeless (laughs)! The government lost any interest, the situation is really disappointing with consequences for the whole country.

I live in England and I am the chairman of a consulting company: with the current government I don’t think we will work much over the next few years. We mostly try and help local governments not to lower the quality level of their services within an extremely critical financial context due to the reduction of resources being allocated by the government, which in the accounts of English municipalities cover most expenditure for waste management and are bound to be further slashed in the future. Many organizations fight for the circular economy, but we have not got consistent national policies to reach this goal: the central government has a very tepid interest in this and passes the burden of taking the necessary actions to private companies. A measure taken by the United Kingdom, though, hit the mark and was very successful: the introduction of a landfill tax.”

How much is it?

“Given that in the UK landfills are almost exclusively privately managed and that these apply about a €30 tariff per tonne, the tax is about €100 per tonne, so altogether €130.”

What are the advantages of such measure?

“I looked very closely at waste management systems in many European countries and I strongly believe that it is far better

to introduce a high landfill tax rather than outlaw those plants, as they do in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Banning landfills leads to oversize the incinerating power of the installation.

In the UK, such overcapacity does not exist.

So I believe that, by contrast, those countries where it does exist, are very grateful to the United Kingdom for having kept its landfills operational, otherwise they would not have waste to incinerate, a part from that coming from Italy (laughs).”

What’s your take on the European hierarchy of waste that instead sees energy recovery incineration before landfilling?

“A series of analyses that I carried out on cost effectiveness never revealed that the required added costs from waste incineration are justified by gaining added benefits.

This is one of the reasons why I believe that the United Kingdom did the right thing when it did not ban landfills. After all, if we are going to go down the alleyway of the circular economy, the main priority must be matter recycling, saying goodbye to landfills and incinerators. In other words, the two options at the bottom of the European hierarchy of waste that cost money are not given much opportunity to make money and they lead to loss of matter. The European hierarchy should be revisited: it used to work in the past, when waste incineration replaced energy production generated by coal, oil or gas plants. But today the situation has changed: energy production is increasingly diverted to the use of low carbon sources. On the contrary, burning waste entails greenhouse gas emissions just like any other combustion process; nor will it be possible to offset them by eliminating greenhouse gases from coal plants because in the United Kingdom we are about to ban their use. So we will no longer be able to say that burning waste does not make burning coal necessary.”

Quite apart from your critical stance on waste hierarchy, do you think that the European legal framework made waste policies more circular in the United Kingdom?

“It undoubtedly had a positive effect: without the waste framework directive and other directives on packaging, landfills and electrical and electronic equipment, today we would not be recycling more than 5% of SUW. For years we had suggested recycling targets, but we did not have effective measures to reach them. The message that reaching such targets was a good thing, regardless of the fact that Europe was imposing it on us (laughs), was understood in the last part of the latest labour government when, on the wake of the benefits that were starting to materialize

Think Tank on the horizon by increasing the recycling quotas and better waste management, in the United Kingdom the first national waste management system was started, quite independently from Europe’s mandates.

But then the situation changed. The following coalition government resumed raising the same questions of over ten years before, while the current English government does not seem to be interested in the least in such policies, with the aggravating factor of having an impact on the whole of the UK.” Could Brexit affect the future development of waste management policies?

“I should think so. The problem is that this sector is closely influenced by the current regulatory measures. With no legal obligation, cheaper waste management solutions tend to prevail, accompanied by the risk of illegal activities, which have soared over the last ten years. The landfill tax was successful, but this kind of procedures opens its gates to the possibility of making money via criminal activities in order to avoid paying tax, a serious problem which we have not yet dealt with adequately.”

To improve consumers’ behaviour we would like a security deposit on beverage containers and a tax on disposable items to be introduced.

What should be done in order to improve the performance in matter flow management within the UK and beyond?

“Over the years, Eunomia put forward many proposals. With regard to conventional waste management, for example, we think the introduction of an incineration tax should be desirable, to back up the existing landfill tax.

To improve consumers’ behaviour we would like a security deposit on beverage containers and a tax on disposable items to be introduced, such as that on plastic carrier bags already introduced, with great success, all over the United Kingdom. Another important measure is the extension, by law, of the guarantee on white durable home appliances, such as fridges and washing machines. A security deposit on small home appliances such as toasters for example should also be introduced. Today, in the UK they are sold for peanuts, around €10 or even less; precisely because they are so cheap they are of very bad quality and they break quickly, often within the guarantee period. However, people could not care less about guarantees, and since they are so cheap, instead of having them replaced, they buy new ones. That is why a security deposit could push people to take them back to the shop, thus allowing for some material recovery, instead of ending up in the mixed waste garbage bin.”

What do you suggest for bulky waste?

“One proposal is about second-hand furniture, that may be restored in dedicated centres in order to improve its appearance and quality, making it look as new as possible and then resold at a higher price compared to how much

it would be sold as pre-owned furniture as it is. It is a recovery modality which has a market in the UK, where a number of companies in this field have been operational for a while, thanks to investments in improving restoration techniques.”

What did you suggest in the building sector?

“In order to reduce waste production in the construction sector, a ‘bond’ that acts as a form of non-compliance fee could be introduced to incentivise better waste management. This would work as follows: in the design phase of the project, the company develops a waste management plan which specifies its objectives in respect of reuse and recycling. At commencement of the project, a bond is paid to the public authority. If the company meets its targets, it will be refunded the compliance fee it has paid in the project phase, minus a small administrative fee; if targets are not met, it will lose some of the refund (the amount lost being in line with the extent to which the target was missed). This system could work as an incentive to realize construction projects which are oriented – since the project phase – to minimize waste, and maximize the recycling of the waste which is generated.

In public projects, procurement processes could establish very high targets for recycling.

This measure is already used in some parts of the USA and South-East Asia quite successfully.”

As to the creation of new jobs, what is the situation ahead according to the scenarios you envisaged?

“There are many organizations, as Zero Waste Scotland, and consultancies, as Eunomia, which have produced analysis and documents that show the positive linkage between circular economy, resource efficiency and new job creation. But I’m convinced that without a shift in the industrial strategy of the government these goals cannot be achieved. This is the reason why many people in the sector, who are convinced of the benefits for the occupation, are frustrated by the government’s inaction, and see the industrial strategy as a key mechanism to move maters forward in England. Unfortunately, the emphasis on the circular economy in the industrial strategy is not especially strong.”

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Closing the Circle is Just One Option Interview with Thomas Rau and Sabine Oberhuber The future of materials according to the Netherlands. With material passports, limited editions and products as a service.

And a suggestion: let us start with the Ferrari.

by Antonella Ilaria Totaro

Madaster, www.madaster.info

Top: New Liander building, Dulven.

Two Germans in the kingdom of the Netherlands.

A great big slice of the Dutch circular economy is based on the vision of Thomas Rau and Sabine Oberhuber, who, for decades, have made the Netherlands their home. Rau and Oberhuber, the former an architect with a background in business strategy, and the latter a business strategist, founded Turntoo in their adoptive nation. With their new forms of architecture, innovative concepts, circular products and services, they aim to facilitate the man-nature equilibrium as well as our temporary presence on the planet.

“We are the Earth’s guests,” they say.

So Renewable Matter interviewed them in their office in the north of Amsterdam – a bright open space, where the position of the desks

does not reveal much about the chain of command. There is not any inaccessible office and Rau and Oberhuber are immediately visible to anyone coming in. We met them about one month after the launch of the Madaster Foundation, which aims to eliminate construction waste across the world, by means of an online registry for Material Passports, which will catalogue all materials currently present in buildings. Thomas Rau and Sabine Oberhuber have also recently published the book Materials Matter, currently only available in Dutch.

Why do materials need a passport?

Rau: “Waste is made up of materials with no identity. To prevent materials losing their identity and becoming waste they need a passport, which

Think Tank

19

allows for their cataloguing with the objective of preservation, reuse and also saving on costs, whereby reducing and, finally, eliminating waste.

Let us take the gold case: some of the gold in circulation today could derive from Roman times.

Historically, gold does not become waste as everyone knows it is a ‘limited edition’ material.

But today, gold is used in nano-quantities in for example smartphones in a way it cannot be recuperated. These are minimum quantities of gold if we look at the individual pieces, but, if we consider the total, the loss is considerable.

A ton of smartphones contains more gold than a ton of gold-ore. Material passports will allow us to know exactly where all the materials are located, including gold, and keep them in circulation.”

Oberhuber: “Since we started producing electronic devices, gold has begun to disappear and we are not talking about little amounts if we look at the total. The Netherlands, for example, lost a quantity of gold equal to €27 million in 2014, in just one year.”

Founder of Turntoo and RAU Architects, two of the top companies dedicated to the circular economy in the Netherlands, Thomas Rau has created some of the original conceptual examples of the circular economy and business models, along with Sabine Oberhuber, who he has worked with for over 25 years.

Some of Rau and Oberhuber’s most visionary, vanguard projects: in 2010, “Light as a service” (“Pay per lux”) developed with Philips; in 2012, a “license” model for washing machines based on performances perfected with Bosch; in 2013, the first circular building as a raw materials warehouse for the municipality of Brummen and the first circular net energy positive building for Liander.

They have recently launched the Madaster Foundation, the material passport and the Universal Declaration of Material Rights, with the objective of presenting it to the UN at the end of 2018 on the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. www.rau.eu turntoo.com/en

Photo by Mirjam Verschoor

What can we do with the materials platform realised by Madaster Foundation?

Rau: “Our objective is to create a global inventory of the materials available. We are convinced that we have to inventorise and manage the resources in the system. The Madaster platform will be a public body comparable to the Cadastre. Nobody owns it. Everyone can use it. There will be an access fee. Then everyone can make use of the information. For individual real-estate owners it will allow, for example, for recording one’s own building and, as a service,

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renewablematter 16. 2017

Top: Old Liander building, Dulven.

Antonella Ilaria Totaro is a circular economy and sustainability expert operating in Italy and the Netherlands.

She is involved in startups and new business models, renewable energy, mobility and sustainable food systems.

She plants trees with the Land Life Company, which she oversees in Italy.

knowing the value of the materials present in the structure every year. When buildings are deconstructed they become a mine of materials, demolition materials are no longer turned into waste and therefore wasted. But with Madaster you will also be able to see how a building was built, which provides important information on how easily material can be extracted. We believe it will lead to a completely different way to design buildings – with the deconstruction in mind.

This is at least how the RAU studio designs buildings now.”

How can old buildings be renovated?

Rau: “The first question is how do we reinvent buildings while preserving their identity. This does not mean preserving everything, but analysing in order to understand which buildings are rich enough – both in terms of identity and history and in terms of materials – to be preserved. Buildings, which must be demolished are treasure troves of materials, they can serve for new constructions, but also for redeveloping those that we want to preserve because they were being built in the same period, hence the same types of materials were used. Today, we know how many buildings need renovating, but we do not know what materials form them – we can close this gap by inventorying the materials with the passport and Madaster.

Oberhuber: “It is important to analyse at what level you can reuse the materials in the building – at buildings level, components level or materials level and look creatively on how to use what is present. In 2015 we did this for the headquarters of Liander, one the first circular buildings worldwide. What we found when we started was a very ugly structure from the 60’s consisting of several buildings scattered over the terrain. We analysed how we could reuse

a maximum of what was already there and at the same time create a ‘new’ building. The result was a preservation of 90% of all the materials we found, while, at the same time, we created a building which in nothing resembled the one we found.

“We reused the majority of the components and materials of the existing buildings, the existing ceiling plates, the concrete from the parts, which were demolished. We recycled the asphalt from the existing roofs, and converting the existing doors into new furniture, amongst many other things.

“Everything we added was designed with disassembly and reassembly in mind.

The metal structure from the roof is designed with the help of a roller coaster construction group, minimalizing its weight, thus reducing the unnecessary use of raw materials and allowing disassembly for later reuse.

Everything is documented in a ‘raw material passport’ in order to assure the reuse of all the materials in the future.”

How can we combine the restructuring and maintenance of old and new buildings with the reduction of energy consumption?

Rau: “I think the focus is not energy – there is not an energy problem, we have enough renewable sources for every site. We are capable of creating energy positive/energy producing buildings for both new and renovation projects.

Energy becomes important when we look at the consumption side of the devices used in the building, e.g. installation but also electronic devices, this needs to be taken care of, as the consumption often is unnecessarily high. In that case the ‘product as a service’ concept provides a solution as it allows us to move the energy bill to the producer, which gives him an incentive to provide us with equipment that uses less energy.

Think Tank Through the ‘product as a service’ concept, we can reduce energy demand and move the focus from how much we need to produce to how much we can reduce the energy demand without losing any comforts.”

The future lies, thus, in service, not ownership?

Rau: “That is exactly it. Use, instead of ownership, can work in every sector where what we call limited editions are required. We are convinced that once producers keep ownership of their products and regard their installed base as a depot for parts and materials for the future they will start producing in a different way.

“Planet Earth is a closed system. All that is physical in a closed system is a limited edition in essence, and, thus, it has a value. We have limited materials and it is service, not ownership, that facilitates the way we use them in an unlimited way. If we really want to change the world, we must change business models.”

Top: Internal view of Liander’s new building, Dulven.

Planet Earth is a closed system. All that is physical in a closed system is a limited edition in essence, and, thus, it has a value.

What changes for companies that adopt a business model based on the product as a service?

Rau: “The producing company continues to hold ownership of and responsibility for the product that is used as a service and regards it as a materials depot. Remaining the owner, the producer understands that by creating low quality objects, they get low quality objects back; while creating good quality objects, after a period of time they get good quality objects back. Objects which can be reused either integrally or in parts.”

What is the next step for closing the circle?

Rau: “I do not think this is about closing the circle. This is a misinterpretation. Closing the circle means that we are still optimising material flows in the chains we have organised. The next step is the ‘continuous material chain,’ that we have devised as an alternative to closing the circle. The central element is that the materials are always present at the front and back of the chain. They never get lost.”

Oberhuber: “Closing the circle is just one of the options. We need to think about multiple circles.

The smallest loops would be loops in which products are repaired and refurbished, but you can also look at the reuse of components in the bigger material loops. The components or materials can go back to the initial producer or they can even go to other producers. There are components that cannot go back into a computer, but could work perfectly in a light bulb or in another device. It does not matter who will use the material afterwards. When it comes back, it may be used by a different company than the previous one.”

What are the main obstacles at this stage and how can we drive this transformation

in countries and companies, which do not yet see this opportunity?

Rau: “The main obstacle lies between our ears...

We overcome the mental obstacle by showing the financial incentive for the transformation.

Approaching the problem from a moral point of view does not work. By making the financial benefits visible, we can move beyond companies’ fear of the new system. I would begin with highlevel brands. In Italy, I’d start with Ferrari whose business model has always been based on the ‘limited edition,’ but it has nothing to do with the environment. Companies must continue with their traditional business and, in parallel, begin a new business, starting small, with low risk, trying, gaining confidence and expanding bit by bit.”

Oberhuber: “Most of the large producers, are highly dependent on raw/virgin materials.

They run the great risk that these materials will finish, while the new system has less risk.

A manufacturer who maintains ownership over the materials knows which ones will come back as well as when and how much. This does not mean that the producers must manage the take back phase on their own. The important thing is for them to facilitate the process under their own responsibility.”

Do we not lose competition between companies that way?

Rau: “Competition no longer has anything to do with materials. In the German automobile sector, for example, Volkswagen, Audi, Mercedes and BMW have developed a platform together with a sole budget for researching materials. When the materials come back, Mercedes could give them to Audi if they do not need them anymore.

New marketplaces between producers could be created. With the advantage that everything could become cheaper because companies, that today only trade materials, without creating any value, will thus be cut out.”

So will logistics change too?

Oberhuber: “Yes, I believe there will be nearby repair centres and more centralised production centres. 3D printing will play an important role, by realising only the missing parts needed to repair the product.”

What will the house of the future be like?

Rau: “I imagine something halfway between a hotel and an owned home. There are things in homes, which we are not attached to, such as electronic devices, therefore we do not need to own them, we get the as a service. But there are also special objects, maybe a memory of grandparents, which we want to preserve, these are objects which you want to own and pass on to your own children. Ownership means not only having power over an object, but also being responsible for it. The responsibility of owning an object, in a closed system with limited resources, is immense and people must be aware of this.”

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renewablematter 16. 2017 In this context, is there currently a player missing?

Rau: “Yes, the Dutch government, that should be defining the framework of reference for organising the circular economy and it is yet to do it.”

Bottom: Facade and interior of Brummen’s Town Hall.

What can the government do in practice?

Rau: “Not give any building permits except for energy neutral or energy positive buildings, like in Switzerland. Tax resources more and tax labour less as it is an unlimited resource.”

Oberhuber: “The government can promote repairing objects like in Sweden. It can, for example, set a maximum limit for the cost of repairing a product rather than getting a new one. There are a lot of incentives that could be activated. Companies will move as a consequence, once the objectives have been established.”

What message do you have for companies that have not yet begun their journey towards the circular economy?

Oberhuber: “Companies that do not change quickly enough will soon be left behind.

They must change otherwise there will be a moment where they will have no access to the materials they need to continue to produce. This demands not only an operational but a deep cultural transformation, all processes need to be revised: design, production, business models, finance, everything.”

Rau: “This is already the present and it will be the future. The planet is not waiting.

It is following its own laws. We must decide if we are going to take part in this process or just observe. We must become ‘mental farmers:’ a farmer’s knows everything about plants, animals, clouds, the weather, water, and the rain, and he is planning ahead, long term in multiple cycles as he has to deal with the consequences of his own decisions. We must mentally become farmers, but in an immaterial way as we have no land to deal with. We must be aware that there will be consequences to our actions and these will affect the planet and the limited resources we have available to us.”

What role do investors have?

Who will be investing in this transition?

Rau: “The negative interest in current capital means that there is too much capital in circulation. The transition is not a money problem.”

Oberhuber: “Pension funds are very interested in this circular transition because they are looking for sustainable long-term investments which are difficult to find these days.”

WATER VS. COAL.

by Emanuele Bompan

South Africa’s Filthy War South Africa receives only 490 mm of annual rainfall, but the economy is structured as if there were great water availability. The contradictions of a country where in order to extract a tonne of coal over 10,000 litres of water and hundreds of thousands of litres per minute are used to cool turbines in power plants. While in many villages, people have access to only three and a half litres of water per day per person.

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renewablematter 16. 2017 Previous page: Witbank. In a coal mine a woman collects coal for personal use. Coal is the only resource for locals.

Photography: Fausto Podavini Research: Marirosa Iannelli Graphics: Riccardo Pravettoni and Federica Fragapane

“Do you know what it means to be close to a power plant? Being close to trouble.” Tiger B., is 41 years old, though he seems sixty.

He has always worked as a welder in the coalfired power plant, Duvha Power Station, near Emalahleni. It’s an appropriate name for a mining city: in the Nguni language “Emalahleni” means “place of coal.”

small community cistern to be filled. “People often argue furiously for a few more litres,” says Lucky, who prefers not to use his full name for fear of retaliation, passing a dirty cigarette to Tiger. “Coal is stealing our right to water and air.”

South Africa and water The country of Nelson Mandela and Kruger National Park, the last preserve for lions and rhinos, has in recent years become one of the least sustainable countries on the African continent. The main offender is the mining industry, which accounts for about 8.3 percent of the country’s GDP. South Africa extracts 8 million carats of diamonds each year, owns more than 80 percent of platinum and 12 percent of the world’s gold. Both are extracted from giant South African mines, the largest over 3,900 meters deep.

But on the throne of the most impactful materials “given” by the Earth, sits coal. Coal is the main culprit for global warming (South Africa ranks thirteenth for CO2 emissions) and water use, consuming around 10 percent of the country’s total.

South Africa possesses 3.5 percent of global coal reserves but accounts for over 6 percent of global exports. The coal that remains feeds 81 percent

His life and that of his family’s are in harmony with the rhythm of the 3,600 Megawatt power plant.

The owner of the plant is Eskom, the state-owned electricity utility company and for years now the largest in South Africa. The coal mine feeds energy production, and black smog covers both the village and also Tiger’s lungs, which are clogged with phlegm and dust. “Do you see the high-voltage cables and water pipes? They are for the power plant.

But in the village we have neither electricity nor water. Hundreds of thousands of litres per minute are used to cool the turbines that generate energy sold to Swaziland and Mozambique. For us, we live in the dark and get three and a half litres of water per day that we carry in a tank.” In the makeshift village, almost 5,000 people live stacked beside a coal wall and a black water well, waiting every week for the

Polokwane

Black water

Matimba

Water demanding coal powerplants of South Africa

Medupi

LIMPOPO

Coal powerplants Installed capacity

North West

4,800 2,000 1,000 500 180

Pretoria

Existing plant Plant under construction Annual water consumption of coal power plants Million cubic meters

Arnot

Kendal Johannesburg

Hendrina

50 HAMABATO

Kusile Komati

MPUMALANGA

40

Marla

“Wet cooling” 30 technology

20

10

0

Camden

Majuba

Mining

Tutuka

Operational coal mine Abandoned mine “Dry cooling”

Water stress Severe water gap between Kroonstad existing supply and projected demand in 2030

GAUTENG Nkwazulu-Natal

Policy Bottom: In a shopping centre near Witbank built thanks to the profits from investments in coal.

With no potable water, the only way is to buy it from supermarkets.

But not everyone can afford it.

Right: Witbank. Inside a coal mine, a woman is picking coal that she’ll take to her family and that it will be used to cook. As there’s no electricity, coal is the only means to cook.

Left page: Source: Water Research Commission, Long Term Forecasts Of Water Usage For Electricity Generation: South Africa 2030, 2015; The 2030 Water Resources Group, Charting Our Water Future, 2009; globalenergyobservatory.org, accessed March 2017.

of electricity production, which is controlled almost entirely by the state-owned power utility, Eskom.

Coal has an extremely heavy water cost: each ton extracted requires over 10,000 liters of water. Large power plants, such as the one in Kusile, opening in 2017 near Maheleni, will use 71 million liters of water per day. Consumption is similar at the Duvha plant, home to Tiger and Lucky.

“South Africa is a dry country, with only 490 millimeters of precipitation each year. Shortages of water for domestic use are characteristic of the country. Yet the economy is structured as if there is a lot of water,” explains Stephen Law, director of Environmental Monitoring Group, a group of environmental analysts based in Cape Town. “Seventy-five percent of water resources are already completely booked, and no water for daily use remains. According to our projections, by 2030 the country will have a 17 percent water deficit.

That means that many people will go without water, especially the poorest. How does all this coal make sense?”

“The battle for water is a battle for rights,” says Kumi Naidoo, ex-director of Greenpeace and now an environmental activist in South Africa. “Jacob Zuma’s government uses the logic that investing in coal creates job and economic development.

Actually, no miner wants his son to do his job.

And nobody wants to be deprived of breathable air and drinking water. South Africa can create new jobs in renewable energies, like solar and wind energy.”

For now, coal is king. The industry is worth $22 billion, according to data from the Chamber of Mines,

the promotional organization for mining companies.

President Zuma’s family – his son Duduzane – is involved in the coal business. “No one in Pretoria will do anything to stop coal. The interests are too high and they are all involved,” continues Naidoo.

Under pressure from citizens and environmentalists, mining companies such as Anglo-American and Exxaro have begun implementing sustainability policies to reduce water consumption for dust suppression and to minimize impacts on the environment of mines at the end of life. Even Eskom, the leading producer of South African electricity that controls 95 percent of the market, is trying to reduce water impacts.

According to Eskom’s spokesman, the company has decreased its water use by virtually half: from 2.85 l/ kWh in 1980 to 1.44 l/kWh in 2015. “It is important to note that Medupi, similar to its sister power station Matimba nearby, uses direct dry-cooling technology, meaning that it uses air for cooling purposes and thereby uses less water in the process.

The choice of dry-cooled technology for Matimba and Medupi was largely influenced by the scarcity of water in the area. Both stations use a closed-circuit cooling technology similar to the radiator and fan system used in motor vehicles. Water consumption is in the order of 0.1 litres per kWh of electricity sent out, compared with about 1.9 litres on average for the wet-cooled stations,” explains Eskom’s spokesman, Khulu Phasiwe, via email. Attention is also given to supply: to ensure water supply in the Waterberg region where the Medupi Power Station is located, Eskom will construct a pipeline from the Crocodile river at Thabazimbi. Excess water exists in the Crocodile River catchment area due to the

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Witbank. Aerial view of the Duvha Power Plant of Eskom, the second biggest power plant of the whole Africa. Eskos is a South African electricity public utility.

Top: Mabola, near Makkarstrom.

Tusajigwe, 17 years-old, while washing the dished for the lunch. The families of this area will be moved from the homes as soon a new coal mine will be open. WWF is trying to fight the opening of this mine.

The presence of the photographer didn’t influence in any way the picture taken.

Picture not staged.

Bottom: Witbank. A man crossed a small bridge that divides

the the area on the coal mine near the Duvha Power Plant and the township where many workers of the power plant live.

Right: In one of the shopping centres near Witbank built thanks to the profits of investments in coal.

Two women study current offers. Shopping centres are the only recreational areas for Witbank, a truly industrial town.

Policy high return flows from treated effluent from sewage treatment plants in Gauteng province.

“These are only cosmetic operations,” contends Dean Muruve, WWF South Africa’s Water Source Area Programme Manager, in his Johannesburg office. “When a real water crisis comes, we will find ourselves simultaneously facing an energy crisis because the mega-power stations will have to be turned off. Coal should stay in the ground and we should favor use of renewable energies.”

water among the miners. The result? The water is highly acidic, with a pH lower than 2.2. “You can’t drink it, you can’t irrigate, you cannot even wash in it. Anyone who does runs the risk of skin, kidney or liver diseases.” Medical data does not exist.

In Emalaheleni hospitals the doctors interviewed speak of diseases, but prefer not to give figures.

Despite several requests of data from the Health Department of the Nkangala district, no reply has been received to-date.

Little and Poor Quality

“On paper, we have good regulations in South Africa.

The problem is implementation, which is nonexistent.

Several water treatment plants are either in partial or total noncompliance. Many mining companies, especially smaller ones, extract without any water controls at all,” illustrates Stephen Law, pulling out papers and documents. “Just look at acid mine drainage, which is becoming increasingly common and critical.” In Africa the intense mining activity has caused abundant runoff of minerals and metals that react with water to contaminate it and make it corrosive. The effects on aquatic environments, drinking water and infrastructure are devastating.

“The problem,” continues Law, “is that the more water is used for extraction, the less of a chance that the acids will be diluted. Not to mention the piece that closes the circle: more coal means more emissions, which means significant impacts on climate and less rainfall. A perfect storm is brewing in South Africa.”

In the villages of Coronation and Driewater, two slums on the outskirts of Emalahleni, stands a Dickensian landscape: mountains of coal, dusty slums immersed in black smog from heavy vehicles used for extraction, fine black dust and rocks with white crust formed from acid mine drainage.

Smoke even spools from underground, where coal from an old, abandoned mine burns slowly by spontaneous combustion. The smell of sulfur infests the huts huddled around the steaming coal mountains. The water available is scarce and often undrinkable. Nearby are twenty-two mines – many already exhausted. It is impossible to think that this is a healthy place.

Willonah Noudo Kubeka, 33, is on dialysis for kidney malfunction. “I don’t drink water anymore, only juice.

Water’s drinkability here is uncertain.” Willonah is one of many residents with health problems related to the mining industry and water contamination.

In some areas water toxicity is higher than any recommended levels. “We have measured the pH of water discharged from the mine,” says Rudolph Sambo, a young activist from Emalaheleni who works to generate awareness of the health risks related to

Top: Witbank. In the township where Willonah Noudo Kubeka, 33-years-old, lives with her mother Agnes.

Willonah, due to the pollution of the water and the air, suffers from systematic kidney failure. Twice a week she has to undergo dialysis in order to keep her disease under control.

Right: Witbank. Inside one of the townships.

A woman checks backlights the deposit of heavy materials in the water she took in a fountain present in the township. In later years, coal mining made water highly polluted.

In this area, water is used to extract the coal.

Assault on the Environment Multinational and small, local mining companies alike seem little interested in water issues. Stimulated by a laissez-faire government, they are pushing for development into unexplored areas, in particular those of the Limpopo region. Like the Waterberg

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renewablematter 16. 2017 Project, with 8,000 hectares of platinum extraction, or Makhado, a new mine of 5.5 million tons of coal developed by Coal of Africa Ltd. One of the areas lesser known to the media – and to investors – is the southern area of Mpumalanga, on the border with the state of Kwalazulu-Natal. AhtaAfrican Ventures, Ltd., part of Atha Indian Group, has submitted a request to the Ministry of Mineral Resources to create a mine in the heart of a protected area, the Mabola Protected Environment, according to documents obtained by the author. A desert ready to be exploited? Not at all, the Mabola is a critical wetland at the confluence of three water reservoirs: the Vaal, the Tugela and the Pongola. The area is part of a strategically important system of protected areas.

The territory covers eight percent of the nation’s total area, but collects 50 percent of all precipitation.

Oubaas Malan, a sixty-six year old man with dry, white legs covered by pair of khaki shorts, leans on his Toyota pickup. He watches from a distance his 3,000 sheep grazing in a valley, green from December’s rains. The air is fresh, the hills perfumed by chlorophyll. A jeep of tourists armed with binoculars and professional 700 mm telephoto lenses move slowly along the dirt road, hoping to spot rare birds

Top: Workers of Duvha power plant on their lunch break.

The majority of men around Witbank works in the power plant. Most of them have a temporary contract.

Top, right: Along the road to Witbank.

A coal train from Pretoria, heads towards Witbank.

Once arrived at destination, the cargo will be directed towards to Duvha power station.

Right: Witbank. In a mine.

A digger excavates the soil to extract coal.

like a Blue crane, Rudd’s lark, or the rare bald ibis.

A group of boys walk barefoot in the pastures, on ground still soft from last night’s rain. “The mine will be built exactly here,” he says, pointing to the valley, “and I will have to leave. The water for the cows will be at risk. I have a friend who had cows near a mine and they all got sick,” says Oubaas, in an English heavily marked by a strong Afrikaans accent.

The local population is against the project. In case of an accident or acid drainage from the mine, not only the valley but also the entire area would be affected. The mine would be at the highest point of the triple reservoir.

“The mine threatens to devastate this area,” explains Andrea Weiss of WWF South Africa. “This would not only impact biodiversity, but also local tourism at Wakkerstroom, which is strongly focused on eco-friendly trips and bird-watching.”

These are some of the reasons why environmentalists are up in arms. “This area is protected, classified by the South African National Biodiversity Institute as one of the twenty-one strategic water resources,” explains Melissa Fourie, executive director of the CER, the center for environmental rights in Johannesburg.

Policy Left: Witbank. In a coal mine.

A child helps his mother extract coal from the mine.

“They should be investing in solar and wind energy. There’s plenty of wind and sun here.”

“We cannot allow Atha to win this legal battle.”

Stopping the Mabola mine does not mean being hostile to coal production, but, as Andrea Weiss explains, “it means deflecting the thirst of mining companies towards less vulnerable areas and areas les central to water security. Moreover, the country should implement a coordinated strategy to avoid harmful impacts of acid drainage and contamination of resources for agricultural and human use.”

A verdict on Mabola is expected this summer.

New energy, new water crisis If the battle over coal seems already destined for a lengthy conflict, two new challenges are emerging to further complicate the confrontation between water security and national energy development.

The affected area is southern Karoo, a desert area in the heart of the country – the mining provinces.

According to prospectors, under the rocks of the sunburned Karoo are significant uranium mines, which are essential to support the renewed and controversial South African nuclear program.

There are also important shale gas resources, an unconventional natural gas extracted by fracking, which means fracturing the rock under the surface using water and chemical agents at high pressure.

According to think tank Transnational Institute, fracking is considered “a system that is seriously jeopardizing the community and causing a troubling diversion of water use in favor of mining companies.”

At present, an environmental campaign begun in 2011, Unearthed, by Jolynn Mynnaar, has put a temporary stop to developing shale gas extraction.

Bottom: Witbank. In one of the many townships of Witbank, near a depleted coal mine.

Kantigi waits for the coal to turn into ember in order to use it to cook.

In the township one can use only coal to cook or to get warm and it can be found, in small quantity, in the depleted coal mine.

The prospect of nuclear energy and uranium mining, however, continues. The government is set to invest more than 70 billion with Russia’s Rosatom for a new nuclear power plant. The plan is the daughter of an agreement between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his African counterpart, Jacob Zuma. The project has stirred up mining companies to file mining claims related to uranium, including in the Southern Karoo.

“It’s madness,” said Bill Steenkamp, while parked in a desert valley just outside Beaufort West, in the heart of Karoo. The temperature rises to 37 degrees Celsius, the heat blurring the horizon, altering the light’s trajectory. “There is no water in Karoo. You can see it with your own eyes. To extract uranium water will be imported by train from the coast, while taking advantage of every drop that we have here now.

The companies interested have already done their numbers. In the region the population uses 7 billion gallons of water a year. The uranium operations alone would require 14 billion liters. Maybe the water is coming from the coast, but what happens if they contaminate the few reserves of fresh water we have here with radioactive elements?” Climate change has already made its mark. Precipitation has been dangerously low for the past few years, and for years many basins around Beaufort West, one of the main urban centers of southern Karoo, have remained dry.

In Beaufort West unemployment exceeds 40 percent. For many, the new mining boom could be an opportunity to get out of poverty. “They should be investing in solar and wind energy. There’s plenty of wind and sun here,” says Bill kicking the dust with his shoe to emphasize the northern breeze. “As long as they stop continuing to dig in this poor country.”

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Dossier

FRANCE

1.9 million jobs and a turnover of more than â‚Ź300 billion a year: in France the bioeconomy is a widespread, competitive and ambitious reality.

And big companies push the growth and development of new bio-based products.

Policy

THE BIOECONOMY

is the New Force de Frappe Number one producer – and exporter – of agricultural products in the EU, France has been able to create effective synergies between agriculture and industry.

As global cluster IAR, specialising in green chemistry and industrial biotechnologies and housing one of the biggest biorefineries in the world, demonstrates.

The sector’s vision of the future indicated by the recent national strategy.

by Mario Bonaccorso

A bioeconomy strategy for France, tinyurl.com/mth5njc

*In this dossier, when referring to the French government, we mean the Hollande administration, that issued the national strategy for the bioeconomy in January 2017. Up until now, the government led

by Emmanuel Macron is most likely to carry on with the new direction, editor’s note.

France has finally taken its place at the table alongside other European countries with a national bioeconomy strategy. Announced in June 2015 and presented on 18 January of this year, Une Stratégie Bioéconomie pour la France proposes a vision for “the coordinated, sustainable development of all biomass-based industries for the production of food, materials, bioproducts, bioenergies and ecosystem services.”

This is the result of a year’s coordinated work, with the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable development and Energy, the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Agrifood and Forestry in starring roles, along with the investors of this metasector which, in France, is founded in the agrifood sector.

France is the number one agricultural producer in the European union, as well as the number one exporter. 51% of national territory is used for agriculture (with 28% being covered by forests). The sector provides work for 936,000 people, generating a turnover of €72.8 billion.

Fishing and aquaculture create a turnover of €1.8 billion. While, according to ANIA, the French agrifood industry association, in 2015, 16,218 French companies were in business employing a total of almost 441,000 workers with a turnover of €170 billion.

As regards the chemical industry, according to data provided by CEFIC, the European Chemical Industry Council, France is the second European

country in terms of turnover, after Germany and before Italy, and the seventh internationally, totalling €74.2 billion in 2015. Between 5 and 10% of the raw materials and materials used by the chemical industry is biological in origin.

So, France’s bioeconomy (the second in Europe as to its production value, again after Germany) is firmly attached to the territory and, at the same time, it is ambitious in terms of change, as the government* claims in its strategy: “For our future and that of the planet, France’s strategic choice is to encourage and support the development of a sustainable economy.”

So, Paris has picked itself back up and is looking forward proudly, driven by the good result of the COP21 which it hosted and encouraged by its economy’s positive figures, with a GDP whose growth was confirmed at +0.4% in the fourth quarter of 2016 compared to the previous quarter – a revised annual increase of 1.2%.

“We need – the strategy reads – new, more efficient, more resilient production and consumption methods which are compatible with the planet’s limits.” This means better use of bioresources, which the agricultural, forestry and marine industries are rich in, to be considered as “a great opportunity for the French economy, in order to strengthen food sovereignty and independence in terms of supply, rebalancing the balance of trade, creating value and strengthening the dynamism of rural areas and the development of employment.”

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renewablematter 16. 2017

Mario Bonaccorso is a journalist and creator of the Bioeconomista blog. He works for Assobiotec, the Italian association for the development of biotechnologies.

1994 ©Jean Widmer

1991 ©ACG – Grapus

1993 ©Alain le Quernec

1990 ©Raymond Savignac

Chaumont and graphic design These posters belong to the first editions of Festival de l’Affiche (International Festival of Posters) of Chaumont (Haute-Marne), made since 1990 by big names of French graphic design. This year, from 13th May to September, the Festival turned into a Biennale with exhibitions, workshops and an international competition. Courtesy of Le Signe, Centre National du Graphisme à Chaumont www.centrenationaldugraphisme.fr

François Hollande’s government believes the development of France’s bioeconomy must be based on significant public and private investments into research and innovation, and a synergetic, coherent approach which is indispensable in terms of national, regional and European policy regarding the economy, the environment, agriculture, forestry, and territorial research and development.

The synergy between industry and agriculture

3Bi, www.3bi-intercluster. org/about-3bi

The French are good at creating synergy between the industrial and agrifood sectors. The most important example of this is the international competitiveness cluster “Industries and agroresources,” better known as the IAR Pole, specialised in green chemistry and industrial biotechnologies with almost 200 partners active, including Picardie and Champagne Ardenne, in the construction of the new economy based on the use of renewable resources. We are talking about the crème de la crème of French industry: Michelin, Roquette, Veolia, Faurecia, Total, as well as L’Oréal, Danone and Lacoste, to name just a few.

The IAR centre in Champagne Ardenne’s capital city, Reims, houses the European

Biorefinery Institute, one of the world’s leading biorefineries. The principle behind the French cluster is sharing and synergy. The Reims site also includes a shared Research & Development laboratory, an industrial demonstrator (Biodemo) and a research centre that reunites different higher education institutes (CEBB). The Futorol project is being developed, again in Reims, in order to produce second-generation biofuels which do not use biomass from plant crops.

While synergy is the IAR centre’s first keyword, the second is internationalisation. The French cluster is not exclusive to its home country, but has partnership agreements active in Europe, Canada, the United States, Japan, Brazil and India. Specifically, in the Old Continent, in October 2015, it launched intercluster 3Bi along with English cluster BioVale, the Dutch Biobased Delta and the German Halle BioEconomy Cluster. Their shared objective is to unite their strengths for the research, development and application of new high-tech approaches to converting biomass, renewable raw material and waste into new products with a high added value.

Back in March 2011, the IAR centre launched the United Bioeconomy Clusters (UBC), an association which aims to share a vision of strategic national development focused on green chemistry and present the French bioeconomy overseas together. The involved clusters are: Axelera, the chemistry and environment cluster in Lyon and the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, focusing on green chemistry and recycling materials, Agrimip, Agri Sud-Ouest Innovation, the cluster for agriculture and the food industry in the Aquitaine and Midi-Pyrenees regions, and Xylofutur, the paper industry cluster in the Aquitaine region.

The role of companies Big companies, such as Total, Arkema, Roquette and Faurecia, are greatly driven in terms of the French bioeconomy’s growth and taking root, and are making large investments into the development of new sustainable biobased products. In March 2017, the petrol giant with headquarters in Paris’s La Défense business district officially launched joint-venture Total Corion PLA’s business. The company, a 50/50 joint-venture with Dutch company Corbion, produces and markets polylactic acid, a bio-based, biodegradable polymer from renewable resources. That is not all. Along with the American business Amyris, Total is developing a biofuel for the commercial aviation market which aims to reduce airline companies’ CO2 emissions which now cause 2% of all CO2 emissions from human activity. In this same sector, the French petrol giant has also signed a collaboration agreement with Air France, Airbus and Safran, the company created

in 2005 from the merger between Sagem (electronics and defence) and Snecma (aerospace).

Another important partnership is developing on the Franco-dutch front: that of Roquette and Royal Dsm. Their joint-venture, Reverdia, is a company active in the production of bio-based succinic acid (biosuccinium), whose production plant is situated in Italy, at Cassano Spinola in Piedmont, and that, in October 2015, signed an agreement with German company Covestro (previously Bayer Material Science) regarding the development of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) from renewable raw materials, to be used in the footwear and consumer electronics sectors.

Arkema, the chemical company created in 2004 following the reorganisation of Total’s chemical division, is active, above all, in the production of polyamides (thermoplastic materials are ideal for mechanical applications) from renewable sources to be used in the automobile, consumer electronics and sport industries in China and in the United States.

In 2006, Faurecia, one of the biggest international groups in the automobile part industry, launched the BioMat project for bioplastic production from natural materials, which was followed, in 2012, by a partnership with the Japanese at Mitsubishi and a jointventure with Thai company PTT concerning the launch of a PBS (polybutylene succinate) plant with a productive capacity of 20,000

tonnes a year in Thailand. Faurecia and Mitsubishi Chemical’s shared goal is to develop a biopolymer which can be used in the mass production of car interior parts, by using biobased succinic acid supplied by American biotech company BioAmber. Gradually, according to the two industrial groups, we will reach 100% materials deriving from biological sources. Faurecia holds the exclusive rights for automobile applications with new biopolymers, whose biological content is currently 65%, but the French company aims to reach 100% by 2018 thanks to bio-butanediol’s arrival on the market. PBS, which derives from petrol or biological sources, is composed 60% of succinic acid and 40% of butanediol.

Alongside the large companies involved in the bioeconomy, there are many small and medium-sized enterprises, including the excelling Global Bioenergies. The biotech company founded in 2008 by Marc Delcourt and Philippe Marlière, and listed in Paris’s Euronext, has carved itself out a leading role in the European context over the years, thanks to its dynamism and important partnerships with players of the likes of Audi, Clariant, Arkema, L’Orèal and Cristal Union. In 2015, the French company completed the industrial upscale of its technology in order to produce isobutene, delivering Arkema the first lots of isobutene purified at the pilot plant in Pomacle. But it doesn’t stop there. Part of this isobutene was transformed into isooctane, an advanced biofuel tested by German company Audi.

Everything going on at Bazancourt-Pomacle The biorefinery at Bazancourt-Pomacle is one of the biggest in Europe. Every year, it transforms three million tonnes of biomass (sugar beet, wheat, alfalfa) into sugar, glucose, starch, alcohol for foods and pharmaceuticals, ethanol and cosmetic active principles.

In 2005, when France launched its new industrial policy with competitiveness clusters, Picardie and Champagne-Ardenne worked together to develop a joint project: an international Industry and Agricultural resources cluster, IAR. Bazancourt-Pomacle’s excellent example was chosen by the French President for the ceremony inaugurating the national policy focusing on cooperation between public and private players in order to reindustrialise the country.

In 2007, the launch of new regulations on biofuels stimulated, on the initiative of Cristal Union and Blétanol (French cooperative union of cereal growers), the establishment of Cristanol, which manages a plant onsite for the production of ethanol deriving from a mix of sugar beet

and cereals. A few years later, in 2011, this same favourable environment led Procethol 2G to create the Futurol project and construct its pilot plant.

What is more, since 2012, significant financial support from the local authorities (Champagne-Ardenne regional council, Marne departmental council and the metropolitan area of Reims) has allowed for the launching of a centre of excellence for industrial biotechnologies (CEBB), which, along with the industrial demonstrator Biodemo, built in 2010, made it possible for ARD (Agro-Industrie Recherches et Développements, a private research structure owned by large French agrifood groups and regional agricultural cooperatives) to develop industrial biotechnology processes.

More recently, the Jacques de Bohan Foundation was founded by Vivescia and Cristal Union. Its first objective is to promote the biorefinery concept as an integrated industrial tool for optimal agricultural production use.

2003 ©Michal Batory

1995 ©Michel Bouvet

Policy

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Support measures One of the priority objectives that the French bioeconomy strategy has set is to communicate the unrest which the country is facing on the industrial and research front adequately with society. In addition, there is a strong need to “specify and promote the positive external effects of bioproducts” (reduction

of climate change, local maintenance and employment, less dependence on fossil sources, sustainability and renewability of resources, less significant health care and environmental impact, protection against natural and physical risks, preservation of water resources, waste valorisation), supporting demand through green public tenders and labelling and standards systems tailored to the needs of companies and the market. As before, with the industrial plan “Green chemistry and biofuels,” which led to the “Energy transition and green growth” law, introducing measures for supporting the use of bioproducts in public markets by analysing their environmental performance and their biological content. With the same law, as requested by Ségolène Royal, minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, the marketing of super-thin bags for fruit and vegetables, meat and fish became possible only if biodegradable, suitable for home composting, and produced partly with renewable raw materials: 30% from 1st January 2017, 40% from 1st January 2018, then rising to 50% after 1st January 2020 and 60% from January 2025.

The country has, as a matter of a fact, marked the transition to the third millennium with its ambition to lead a new industrial revolution, driven by the use of organic resources. Paris’s new force de dissuasion is the bioeconomy.

Interview

by M. B.

Our aim is to make people work together

Photo: Pascal Xicluna/Min.Agri.Fr

Julien Dugué, French Ministry of Agriculture, Food industry and Forestry

Julien Dugué is in charge of bioeconomy and biobased industry in the french ministry of Agriculture, Food industry and Forestry.

He coordinates the inter-departmental work on the National bioeconomy strategy. “Renewable Matter” has interviewed him in order to deepen the French policy for the development of the bioeconomy.

What role does the bioeconomy play in the sustainable growth strategy of France?

“Biobased solutions are already a strong orientation in several sectors: bioenergy, bio-based products for building, for chemistry. With the national bioeconomy strategy, this role will become more important and more visible. The strategy will also give more coherence among public policies aiming to develop biomass uses.”

And what is the role of agri-food in the bioeconomy?

“From the French perspective, agri-food value

chains are definitely part of the bioeconomy: food is one use for biomass and we have to consider it carefully because it is the most strategic. Moreover, agri-food industries are also important stakeholders when we talk about bio-based products: it could be new opportunities of valorisation or a very interesting way to use side streams coming from food processing. Food and non-food uses have to be considered in the same time, in a synergetic way.”

What is the action plan of the government to fully implement the strategy?

“Beyond specific actions in order to develop innovative ways to use biomass, we aim to make people work together, in a systemic approach and coordinate their actions. We will lead this work thanks to an operational action plan.”

What policies are now in place in France to support the bioeconomy?

1998 ©Claude Baillargeon

In Germany, Global Bioenergies has also activated its 100-tonne-per-year demonstration plant in the Leuna chemical site, while a commercial plant was built in France through a partnership with Cristal Union. Once operational, by the end of 2018, it will produce 50,000 tonnes per year. Isobutene is a chemical intermediate which demand is growing for from different industrial sectors (from cosmetics – this is where L’Orèal’s interest for the Global Bioenergies commercial plant comes from – to agrifood, chemistry, combustibles and gas for the home), for an estimated value of 20 billion dollars.

In order to diversify the raw material used, in February 2017 the company led by Delcourt completed the purchase of Syngip, a Dutch company that has developed a process for converting gas carbon sources into light olefins (ethylenes, propylenes, butenes, butadienes).

1997 ©Michel Quarez

renewablematter 16. 2017

Policy

2000 ©Nous Travaillons Ensemble

And what is the role of regions in this regard?

“Several national policies support the bioeconomy development: the new law for energy transition and green growth, the industrial policy, agricultural and forestry policies. The bioeconomy strategy will support these different initiatives and coordinate them. Regions are also very important because they handle tools for economic development, innovation and they are a good level in order to develop smart projects of bioeconomy.

We really want to help them to build their own project.”

2001 ©La Fabrique d’images

What are the strengths of your country in the bioeconomy?

“France has a strong production of biomass in agriculture, forestry and marine sectors. Economical stakeholders are already on board with concrete projects. And last but not least, research and innovation policies are very strong and a lot of work has been done in the area of bioeconomy.”

Without the people on board, it’s really difficult to deploy across the board everything you need to do to really boost the bioeconomy.

What is the perception of the bioeconomy by the French public opinion? Are there plans for education and training?

“We totally agree with that statement. The bioeconomy as a global approach is not really spread among French society. Some products of the bioeconomy are well known (biofuel, wood biomass, bioplastic bags)

but there are still some negative reactions. For that reason, communication in different parts of society (NGO, school, university, consumers) is one of the pillars of the French strategy for the bioeconomy.”

Interview

by M. B.

IAR, innovation catalyst Boris Dumange, Director General of IAR Pole

Photo: Iar

Committed since its creation to developing plant chemistry and industrial biotechnology, the IAR Cluster is now concentrating its efforts on deploying competitive biorefineries: a source of regional economic development. “Renewable Matter” interviews Boris Dumange, who is Director General of IAR – The French Bioeconomy Cluster – since 2014. He joined IAR in 2010 as Deputy Managing Director. Prior to joining IAR, Boris worked for the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the French department of Aisne where he was in charge of business intelligence activities.

www.iar-pole.com

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At last France too is now equipped with a national strategy for the bioeconomy.

What’s your take on that?

“France is indeed one of the last major ‘bio-based Member States’ of the European Union to publish an official framework for the production and valorization of renewable resources. Yet, the French did not wait for a strategy to be part of the world leading bioeconomy experts. The national and regional

authorities, especially in the Hauts-de-France and Grand Est regions, have a long track record when it comes to supporting biobased developments and industries. The adoption of the strategy is a new strong signal that France is a key bioeconomy player and we hope it will to contribute to strengthen its position as one of the world leader.”

What measures should the government introduce in the very short term to promote full development of the French bioeconomy?

“The strategy draw a vision of the French bioeconomy. The Government announced its intention to develop an action plan in the coming months and to establish a national bioeconomy council, bringing together industries, NGOs, academics and research institutes as well as local, regional and national decision makers.

“As innovation catalyst, IAR – The French Bioeconomy Cluster – we believe that financial tools and mechanisms are needed to boost innovation and investment in existing and new bio-based

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renewablematter 16. 2017 value chains. The French Government has recently adopted its multi-annual programme for research, innovation and industry support (PIA3). It is now important that the priorities of the bioeconomy strategy are reflected in this framework programme.

“Increasing market uptake of biobased innovations is also crucial. National and regional public authorities could play a key role through preferred public procurement for innovative products, both for food applications, such as plant-based proteins, or industrial products. Such measure would contribute strongly to the reinforcement of the bioeconomy.”

2006 ©Pascal Colrat

2004 ©Rik Bas Backer et José Albergaria

As things stand, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the bioeconomy in France?

“The French bioeconomy is big, deeply rooted in the field and competitive. Europe’s leading agricultural power (22.9% of cereal production, 32.9% of sugar beet production, 24.5% of rapeseeds and turnip seeds production), France’s bioeconomy represents 1,9 million jobs and more than €300 billion turnover on an annual basis. It is a unique opportunity for the French regions to strengthen their rural economies and offer opportunities to farmers to diversify their incomes.

“France is also home to several biobased champions and some large agricultural cooperatives and agro-food industries which are deeply involved in the bioeconomy. The country can also count on a highly performing innovation ecosystem.

In the regions of Hauts-de-France and Grand Est only, where IAR – The French Bioeconomy Cluster is mostly active, we have developed one of the world most comprehensive and complementary offer to accelerate innovation on most feedstock.

Innovation facilities and programme such as

PIVERT, IMPROVE or B.R.I in Pomacle-Bazancourt as well as R&D labs, pilots and demonstrators plants, up to 180 cubic meter and TRL7 have been developed.

“When it comes to weaknesses, as in many European countries, the bioeconomy remains quite conceptual for many citizens and consumers, though, it is part of their daily life. The French Bioeconomy Strategy aims to involve them more in the future. We believe this should contribute to make it more inclusive and tangible to people.”

What role does the Industrial plan “Green chemistry and biofuels” play in the French bioeconomy? And what is the role played by regions?

“The Green chemistry and biofuels plan was part of 34 plans to boost industry in France. Since then, they have been merged into 9 solutions as part of the ‘NFI’ policy. Two solutions are strongly interlinked with the bioeconomy: the one on ‘new resources’ which tackles non-food applications of the bioeconomy such as bio-based chemistry, bio-based materials and biofuels; as well as the solution on ‘intelligent food’ where important challenges such as plant-based proteins are dealt with. French bioeconomy stakeholders are strongly involved in the discussions on these two solutions, as it is a mean to implement some of the bioeconomy strategy priorities through concrete actions and measures. As an example, IAR has played a pivotal role in the ‘Proteins of the Future’ plan – part of the ‘Intelligent Food’ solutions – and the commitment of the French government and private consortium to make France one of the world leader in proteins.

“Regions are essential in the development of the bioeconomy in France. Regions such as the Hauts-de-France and Grand Est have identified the bioeconomy as part their top priorities, including in their smart specialisation strategies. For more than 30 years, they have been supporting and taking a role in large biobased initiatives and bioeconomy projects through the establishment of supportive framework conditions.”

One of the key themes tackled in the strategy is that of information and dissemination of the bioeconomy, on which the European Commission is also focusing. What needs to be done to engage with public opinion?

“The bioeconomy is nothing new. It already exists but has become a policy priority in Europe and its Member States. Through plastics, food, detergents, washing powder and many other applications, it is part of all citizens’ daily life. But they simply don’t know about it.

“IAR’s vision of the bioeconomy is one which is inclusive and deeply linked to local territories, therefore contributing to green and sustainable growth, jobs creation as well as to the revitalisation of rural areas. The bioeconomy will only be endorsed by citizens if they realise its benefits and added value. Large communication initiatives would probably help to increase citizens’ awareness on the bioeconomy.”

Policy Interview

by M. B.

Everything Started with Pasteur Marc Delcourt, Global Bioenergies co-founder and CEO

Global Bioenergies is one of the most proactive companies in the European bioeconomy panorama.

Created in 2008 in the Évry Génopole Biocluster, the company led by Marc Delcourt is the only one in the Old Continent developing a process to convert renewable resources in hydrocarbons through fermentation. The company focuses on the production of isobutene, one of the most important petrochemical building blocks that can be converted into fuels, plastic, organic glass and elastomers. “Renewable Matter” interviewed Marc Delcourt, its co-founder and CEO.

2009 ©Henning Wagenbreth

2008 ©Frédéric Teschner

www.globalbioenergies.com

What is your opinion on the strategy for the bioeconomy introduced by the French government?

“The strategy has the advantage of offering a frame of reference for the sector, but in France, the bioeconomy was not certainly born last January, it is deeply-rooted in the history of the country.

Microbiology has been a significant scientific sector since Louis Pasteur and agribusiness underpins the very French economy. France has a number of tools to develop the bioeconomy, which have been made available in abundance over the last few years: from supporting the development of advanced biofuels, to backing innovative businesses. In 2013, my company was allocated funds by the government in the region of €4 billion within the Investissements d’Avenir programme.”

What do you expect now in terms of political measures to support the bioeconomy both in France and in Europe?

“I believe that supporting advanced biofuels should be enhanced until they are competitive on the market. France recently decided to increase the ceiling for biofuels to 7.5%, and I think it is a good news that will help the whole domain, including people like us focused on innovation. Besides, introducing a green public procurement system such as Biopreferred in the USA could act as an excellent incentive. We are now exploring in France and in Europe all the tools put in place these last years to finance the construction of first-of-its-kind commercial plants. I think that the key is here, because we are talking about large investments (typically, €100m per plant).

The decision mechanisms to support innovations reaching this stage of maturity will be determinant.”

Can you give us an insight on the history of the company ?

We started in 2008 by raising venture capital in France to develop our project. Back then

we demonstrated that we were able to teach bacteria how to produce hydrocarbons and eventually we managed to develop a prototype.

Then we raised more funds and in 2011 we listed our company on the Stock Exchange.

This enabled us to progressively transition from laboratory development to scale-up efforts.

Last November, we finished building our 100-tonne-a-year isobutene demonstration plant in Leuna (Germany), thanks to €5.7 million in financial support by the German Ministry for Development and a €4.4 million loan granted by a consortium of French banks.”

After the construction of the Leuna plant, what are Global Bioenergies’ next moves?

“In the coming months – and years – the plant in Leuna will enable us to further expand our technology at industrial level producing batches at the ton-scale. These test samples will be necessary for various industrial players to validate the specifications of our product. This is why we expect many new collaborations in the wake of those already in place with Clariant in the field of chemistry, with Butagaz in the field of household gas, with Arlanxeo in the tyre sector, with Lantmännen Aspen in that of biofuels, with Preem and Sekab in biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass and with L’Oréal in the cosmetic sector.”

In February, you concluded the acquisition of Dutch company Syngip. What is the strategic importance of this operation?

“Syngip is developing a process to convert gaseous carbon sources into light olefins. This process is based on a company-owned microorganism able to metabolize carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) in a vast range of high value biochemicals, such as isobutene, isoprene, butadiene and propylene. The entire Syngip team will be devoted to the development of third generation isobutene derived from CO2.

Our partnership with American LanzaTech will also deal with this aspect.”

What can we expect in 2017?

“We expect to move move forward on our first commercial plant project, held by IBN-One, the joint-venture we have created with Cristal Union (n° 4 sugar player in Europe). We also expect to progress significantly in the diversification of the resources usable in our process.

In particular, I expect we will progress significantly on the usage of 2nd generation resources (wheat straw, wood chips...). Stay tuned!”

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renewablematter 16. 2017 edited by Institut de l’économie circulaire, Parigi www.institut-economie-circulaire.fr

Towards Circular Public Procurement in France Obstacles to overcome and where to leverage.

What are Paris and the French railways doing about that.

by Adrian Deboutière

Adrian Deboutière

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Adrian Deboutière, Project Manager – Institut de l’économie circulaire.

Public procurement is considered as a top policy lever as it represents a significant part of GDP (about 14% in Europe). The French national law on energy transition is stating that public procurement “must serve” the circular economy transition. Moreover, recent regulatory changes on public procurement at the European level encourage public purchasers to include social and environmental performance criteria. However, in practice, most public purchasers do not consider the circular economy because of the lack of political will and key operational tools.

A recent study from the Club of Rome estimates that the circular economy in France could create about 500,000 jobs and cut by a third greenhouse gas emissions. Transition towards the circular economy is now directly targeted through the national law on energy transition. Public procurement is considered as an important lever to implement the circular economy.

The Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement, which was transposed in French law in 2016, allow purchasers to include the circular economy both through defining the subject-matter of the procurement by including technical specifications, and through award criteria. Single price criteria use should now be limited to strictly equivalent products, while multicriteria assessment and life-cycle costing shall be used for most of public procurement award processes.

Thus, the new regulatory framework on public procurement encourage purchasers to change their practice but some non-regulatory barriers are still preventing most of them to include extra-financial criteria.

The Institut de l’économie circulaire is currently leading a workshop in cooperation with the national observatory on sustainable purchasing, to identify these barriers and provide appropriate levers. The table below summarises barriers and levers for circular public procurement.

Best practices sharing is essential to duplicate existing initiatives. Cases of the city of Paris and SNCF (National society of French railways) are quickly presented below.

City of Paris – Sustainable public procurement Parisian strategy Every French public authority whose total purchasing exceeds 100 million euros must produce a sustainable procurement plan.

The city of Paris was the first local authority to adopt such a plan in 2016. This Parisian scheme is promoting circular economy through its three main pillars: Stimulate ecological transition: •• Define circular economy criteria, especially for construction sector •• Develop reuse and combat planned obsolescence •• Promote biosourced products, product service systems and the collaborative economy

Policy Summary table of barriers and levers for circular public procurement

Technical barriers

Political and organisational barriers

Category

Obstacles

Levers

Political commitment to develop circular public procurement is too weak in public authorities

Consider public procurement as a tool to develop circular economy in local authorities

Circular economy not considered while defining the subject-matter of the procurement

Promoting circular public procurement through strategies and planning documents

Insufficient knowledge of available circular products, especially within territories

Widespread the use of sourcing (preliminary market consultations)

Complicate to promote innovation through public procurement (financial and regulatory risks)

Develop innovation partnerships as well as reciprocal agreements as Green Deals

Lack of clear governance linked to the underestimation of public purchaser’s role

Set a transversal public procurement board in relation to other public authority services

Strict compliance with public procurement rules without considering economic and environmental matters

Set economic issues at the heart of public procurement (subject-matter of the contract and award criteria)

Professionnalisation

Lack of knowledge concerning regulatory opportunities to include extra-financial criteria: the single price remains mainly used by public purchasers

Provide necessary knowledge and tools to public purchasers to select “most economically advantageous tender,” through initial and ongoing training

Circular economy knowledge

Lack of knowledge on circular economy standards, criteria and metrics that can be used to implement it

Design “easy-to-use” purchasing segments guides to help purchasers to implement relevant circular economy criteria

No multicriteria framework allowing to assess tenders considering environmental performance

Develop multicriteria assessment methods including social and environmental performances

Lack of consolidated methods to assess life-cycle costing (except for vehicles)

Define standardized life-cycle costing methods by product type when relevant

Delivery of required data might complexify market access and prevent some potential suppliers to tender (particularly SMEs)

Allow providers to prove their tender meet standards without involving disproportionate effort

Lack of visibility on circular public procurement best practices

Reference best practices and make them available on an open-source database

Complicate to gather supply and demand on territories

Simplify access to tender opportunities and facilitate sourcing through internet platforms

Political support

Public-private partnership Recognition of the role of public purchasers

Assessment

Best practices sharing

Overview of Life Cycle Costing

Non monetized life cycle costs

Costs of non monetized externalities Costs of externalities Enviromental/Social

Monetized Life Cycle Costs (LCC)

Costs/benefits of risk/opportunities Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Acquisition, use & and of life costs Purchasing price

Price Organization

Build a city based on solidarity: •• 20% of procurements must contain a clause of social integration focusing on circular economy jobs •• Promote alimentary short-circuits and combat food waste Paris as an exemplar city: •• Develop sourcing through a dedicated platform •• Set a procurement planning commission to ensure policy continuity and coherence on this subject.

Circular economy within the procurement policy of SNCF SNCF included circular economy in their procurement policy to reduce

Society

their costs by optimising the use of resources.

To achieve it, SNCF identified four different ways: •• Opt for product service system rather than owning; •• Work on eco-design of products; •• Develop new recovery streams for waste and co-products; •• Favour short loops as internal reuse.

Examples of actions developed by SNCF through procurement: •• End-of-life public works machines of SNCF are now sold for reuse; •• Eco-design of rubber-metallic suspension parts allows for remanufacturing; •• Workers uniforms are collected in partnership with other companies to develop a viable recovery chain.

Source: ISO 14001.

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BREWING with Leftover BREAD

Collaboration between cities and the business world is key to achieving the circular economy. With effective measurement tools, decision making support, and the right environment, many cities and companies are starting to realise the benefits.

by Shyaam Ramkumar

1. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision, Key Findings and Advance Tables, 2015.

Call it a hype if you will, but the circular economy is here to stay: it is gaining traction around the world, and the strategies it provides can solve our current dependence on finite resources. By making effective use of the resources we already have, the circular economy moves away from linear practises towards a system in which we do not have to compromise between economic, social, or environmental prosperity. Because of its systemic nature, the circular economy requires a multi-

stakeholder, implementation approach, and cities and businesses in particular hold the key to accelerating the transition.

Current economic and business models assume a never-ending supply of natural resources for us to draw from in order to meet societal needs. This assumption, however wrong, has unfortunately laid the grounds for and enabled a global economy that is decidedly linear.

With the world population expected to grow to nine billion by 2050,1 the reality of this linear system and the resource scarcity it will inevitably

Policy

43

Beer

Brewing

Spent grain

Bread Flapjacks Mushrooms

Baking

Local farming

Circle Economy

As the Knowledge and Innovation Manager at Circle Economy, Shyaam Ramkumar is the leading force behind the organisation’s innovative projects on knowledge sharing and digitization.

He has created online tools to help businesses understand the different operational and organisational aspects of the circular economy and he is constantly seeking new ways to leverage knowledge to create positive change.

Shyaam has studied Industrial Ecology and systems-thinking approaches in Norway and previously held consulting roles at Accenture within their Strategy and Sustainability consulting group.

Circle Economy is an Amsterdam-based social enterprise that aims to accelerate the practical and scalable implementation of the circular economy. They believe in a visionary future for the planet – one in which we do not have to compromise between economic, social, or environmental prosperity. Alongside an international network and through their open source ethos, they enable cross-industry collaboration and aim to create the conditions for disruption and innovation. Their main focus is in introducing businesses, cities and governments to the circular economy, by helping them identify opportunities to make the transition and providing them with practical solutions to turn these solutions into reality. www.circle-economy.com

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renewablematter 16. 2017

Erasmus Research Institute, www.erim.eur.nl

create has become increasingly hard to ignore.

Ecological deterioration, climate change, and a widening prosperity gap only highlight and support the argument for a radically different approach to the way we create, consume, and dispose.

At Circle Economy, we believe that the circular economy provides the systemic overhaul we need. By putting forward business models and strategies that ensure we make use of materials and resources to their fullest potential, the circular economy reduces resource risks, minimises environmental impact, and, ultimately, mitigates climate change. It is a system that not only enables inclusive prosperity but, in making effective use of our resources, is also mindful of the boundaries of our planet. Beyond environmental considerations, the circular economy also provides new employment opportunities and improves the liveability of rapidly growing urban areas. In fact, cities across the globe are starting to recognize the circular economy as the solution they’ve been looking for. Many, however, still find it difficult to understand how and where to get started.

Cities, government officials, and policymakers first need the be able to effectively measure and benchmark circularity. They need tools to quantify the potential for job creation, waste reduction,

and business collaboration, but also to establish baselines and set KPIs for the circular economy strategies they want to test. These tools do not currently exist, but are quickly being developed and tested and, empirical research is increasingly starting to provide evidence for the promises of the circular economy.

Take employment, for example. With the support of the Erasmus Research Institute, Circle Economy has been able to define and measure the type of jobs that both foster and reflect circular practices, and we have developed a standardised and replicable methodology for any city around the world to use in measuring and monitoring them.

This allowed us to determine that, currently, 8.1% of all jobs within the Netherlands directly or indirectly contribute to the circular economy. This is a baseline that government officials can actively use in quantifying how circular the Dutch economy currently is, but it also provides them with a benchmark to measure the results of future circular strategies.

We hope this methodology will pave the way for other countries to follow in our footsteps and for other academic institutions and organizations to collaborate in developing the tools cities so urgently need to measure, monitor and evaluate their efforts.

Policy

Circular Jobs: The Circular Economy and Opportunities for Employment in the Netherlands, www.circle-economy. com/Circular-Jobs

Cities also need to know where to invest their efforts in order to effectively implement the circular economy.

When the city of Glasgow set out to become 100% circular, they quickly realised they needed to better understand how to start shaping their vision of systemic change.

Which industries were ready to successfully adopt circular business models? Which areas within the city could benefit the most from a cross-sector, collaborative approach?

Which market opportunities were there that linear practices couldn’t satisfy? And more importantly, how could they implement the change?

In order to answer these questions, we conducted a scan of the Glasgow economy using our Circle City Scan method – the first city-wide method that identifies key areas to catalyze a city’s move to circularity, defines opportunities for the local business community, and specifies implementation strategies. As a result of this scan, an opportunity was identified to connect the waste streams of local bakeries and breweries.

This past March, local brewer Jaw Brew announced the launch of Hard Tack: a new craft beer brewed from local unsold and discarded bread. Hard Tack could not have seen the light of day without the mobilisation efforts of the Scottish Chamber of Commerce and the desire of local businesses to collaborate. Our hope is that this is the first in a long series of circular success stories.

their operations and contribute to solving the systemic challenges involved in the take-make waste system. By committing to embedding circular design thinking into all stages of their business, companies can leverage new, innovative, and competitive value propositions.

Be it through designing out waste from their supply chains, designing for future lifecycles, or reevaluating their business models as a whole, businesses can realise both the financial and non-financial benefits of circularity.

Ultimately, although cities and government officials can set up the right legislative and political environment to support the circular economy, businesses remain instrumental in accelerating our transition.

Currently, most business models revolve around products designed to have limited useful lives, and value chains are designed to optimise this approach. These models, though financially profitable, do not take a systems perspective into consideration and face many future risks.

Companies, however, can both future-proof

Through close collaboration with companies that are already implementing circular economy principles, we are able to stay on top of the latest business developments and learn from the different challenges that these companies encounter during each phase of the transition. Eager to play a part in creating and implementing the solution, we have recently launched a series of workshops to help organisations, entrepreneurs, and product developers apply circular design thinking to their businesses, services and products.

Companies are already starting to make this transition. Take Fairphone for instance.

They have designed modularity, repairability, and longevity into their phones, and have committed to supporting only fair practices throughout their value chain. Their pioneering work has significantly grown consumer awareness and the demand for similar products.

The denim brand, Mud Jeans, has a leasing scheme that allows them to both build long-lasting relationships with their consumers and, more importantly, remain in control of and reuse precious resources.

Desko, an office furniture manufacturer, uses buyback strategies to extend the lifetime of their products. By repairing and refurbishing the old furniture that they buy back, they are able to re-sell the same products three times. The list goes on, and these inspiring real life examples make us firm believers that circularity is here to stay.

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FASHION

Dr. F. Nemos, European Butterflies, detail, Table VI, Oestergaard Verlag, Berlin (ca: 1895) – Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

Focus

It is the second most polluting industry worldwide with an enormous consumption of matter. In order to make fashion sustainable the key words are recycling and reuse of waste, elimination of polluting substances and processes.

But research of new materials and business models.

The leading companies of the sustainable and circular fashion.

FASHION,

Cannibals and Forks

by Marco Ricchetti

Over the past 15 years, an increasingly greater amount of clothing has been consumed across the world: we have gone from around 8 kg of textile fibres per inhabitant to around 13 kg in 2015.

And each extra kilo entails a corresponding increase in consumed energy, chemical substances released into the environment, and depletion of non-renewable materials. However, the increase in awareness of and sensitivity to environmental impacts produced by the sector is driving fashion towards a change in paradigm.

Marco Ricchetti, economist, co-founder of sustainability-lab.net and Blumine Srl, advisor to the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (National Chamber of Italian Fashion) and Pitti Immagine (a series of fashion events held in Florence, Italy), as well as consultant for textile and fashion companies advising on sustainability projects development. Ricchetti is, furthermore, the editor of Neo-materials in the circular economy: Fashion, Edizioni Ambiente, 2017.

Top: Details of Besani’s knitted textile.

“Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?”

John Elkington is asked at the beginning of Cannibals with Forks, one of the most important books on sustainability published in 1997 where the triple bottom line principle is formulated for the first time.

Elkington answered the question positively: if cannibals, who, in the metaphor, represent big companies that try to “devour” one another, use a fork, that is, adopt sustainable production models, will they really progress?

The question also applies perfectly to fashion.

We, indeed, say that fashion is cannibal, affected by a sort of reverse Cronos Syndrome.

In fashion, children – new collections and trends – devour fathers – the collections and trends of the previous season – making them obsolete, unfashionable and eliminating their commercial value. We could register fashion’s cannibalism as a perfect example of planned obsolescence, as Catherine Rampell wrote on The New York Times in a 2013 article where she provocatively invited brands like Apple

to imitate fashion’s consumer brainwashing every new season to convince buyers to purchase something new. There must be some truth to it. But something more than that too, as is clear if we compare fashion with a “pure” creative industry such as publishing or cinema: could we perhaps claim that the publication of a new novel or the production of a new film is a waste caused by planned-obsolescence strategies initiated by editors and producers?

Can we stick to reading or seeing the classics again? The need for new products is innate in creative industries and the hybrid fashion industry has inherited some of their DNA. It is difficult to imagine a world where the need for innovation and the cultural and symbolic aspect – in short, fashion – does not have a lot of influence on how we dress and where clothing is merely a functional feature.

Unlike “pure” creative industries, such as cinema, music or publishing where production is mainly immaterial, fashion consumes great quantities of materials.

Actually, it is the materials which attribute

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renewablematter 16. 2017 Material flows in the clothing and fashion industry

NONRENEWABLE

MM SYNTHETIC FIBRES* DUMPING SITE OR INCINERATOR

LEATHER GOODS, SHOEWEAR AND JEWELLERY

CONSUMERS

METALS PLASTIC FOR BAGS AND SHOEWEAR REUSE OR POSTCONSUMER RECYCLING NATURAL FIBRES RENEWABLE OTHER INDUSTRIES LEATHER

*Man-made and synthetic fibres.

MM CELLULOSE FIBRES*

Source: sustainabilitylab on data from CIRFS, UN Comtrade; FAO Leather compendium; FAO, Jute, kenaf, sisal, abaca, coir and allied fibres statistics; World Silver Survey.

an aesthetic and symbolic value to the garments: the style of the dress, the textile’s feel, its lightness, more or less gleam or brighter or less bright colours – it all depends on the materials used or the industrial processes which the materials have undergone. The book Neo-materials in the circular economy: Fashion deals with the matter of the tension which is generated between the material and manufacturing aspect and the continuous need for new products which fuels fashion and material consumption.

The problem is clear, but what about the solutions?

Catherine Rampell “Cracking the Apple Trap,” The New York Times, 29 October 2013 (tinyurl.com/q6pyykl)

Material “waste” innate in fashion cannibalism has a negligible impact when, at the end of the 1800s, American sociologist Thorstein Veblen described it as a distinctive attribute of the welloff, that is, a concern limited those he identified as the leisure class. The impact began to increase

POST-INDUSTRIAL RECYCLING

in the 1970s with the development of prèt à porter – while a French term, the revolution took place in Italy – that boosted access to fashion, opening it up to a wider public and making it a global phenomenon. And it finally exploded at the start of this century with the fast fashion boom, allowing everyone to have the latest fashions at a minimum price, furthermore accelerating product obsolescence cycles. Income growth and increased consumption in recentlyindustrialised economies has contributed to making the explosion of fashion material consumption even more dramatic. Consider, for example, China, where clothing consumption, net of price increase, almost quadrupled between 2002 and 2015, according to China Statistical Yearbook data published by National Bureau of Statistics of China.

The extent of the change that has been generated over recent years is evident in data on consumption per capita of textile fibres which have grown over the past 15 years from around

Case Studies Rise in per capita clothing consumption worldwide (1960-2014) 14 kg per capita

13

12 10 7.7

8 5 6 4 2 0

14 20 11 20 08 20 05 20 02 20 99 19 96 19 93 19 90 19 87 19 84 19 81 19 78 19 75 19 72 19 69 19 66 19 63 19 60 19

Source: sustainabilitylab.net on ICAC- FAO World Apparel Fibre Consumption data, different years and UN Population Prospects data.

Made-by, www.made-by.org

8 kg per inhabitant in 2000 to around 13 kg (+68%), more than they had risen over the previous 40 years, since in 1960 the figure was around 5 kg. Using the same materials, technologies and processes, every extra kilogram consumed results in a corresponding increase in consumed energy, chemical substances released into the environment, and depletion of non-renewable materials.

These simple figures highlight a problem which is now recognised and all fashion’s stakeholders agree on its importance. Solutions cannot however be settled on.

On one hand, a change in consumption models is called for, along with a radical limitation of fashion “cannibalism,” reduced obsession for new products which would translate into less

consumption and less material waste. If mass cannibalism fuelled by low prices is the cause of the problem, they say it cannot be part of the solution. Another point of view, instead, assumes interest in fashion, and the early obsolescence of products that inevitably derives from it, to be a plain and simple fact – except some excesses which deserve a limit – and that the solution must be found with the introduction of new, more sustainable technologies and circular economy models.

That is, by equipping cannibals – fashion designers and producers – with forks, as Elkington would say. According to this view, the key words are: recycling, reduction and reuse of waste as well as elimination of substances and processes which pollute or have a high environmental impact.

A change in paradigm: the main players of more sustainable fashion The analyses and good practice cases presented in Neo-materials in the circular economy: Fashion are an official stance in favour of the second point of view which is not only more realistic, but can generate positive effects within a short space of time.

Actually, it has already started producing them.

The book collects examples of the sustainable use of materials in fashion production which have established themselves on the market over recent years. After the presentation of the sustainability evaluation model for textile materials proposed by Made-by, one of the international points of reference for sector companies, in the chapters dedicated to non-renewable and renewable materials, recycling, water and chemical substance use, come 14 company stories about the adoption of more sustainable technologies and processes by the fashion production

Made-by’s Environmental Fibre Benchmark More sustainable

Less Sustainable

Class A

Class B

Class C

Class D

Class E

Unclassified

Mechanically recicled Nylon

Chemically recicled Nylon

Conventional Flax (Linen)

Modal®

Bamboo viscose

Acetate

Mechanically recicled Polyester

Chemically recicled Polyester

Conventional Hemp

Ply-acrilyc

Conventional Cotton

Alpaca Wool

Organic Flax (Linen)

CRAiLAR® Flax

PLA

Virgin Polyester

Cuprammonium Rayon

Cashmere Wool

Organic Hemp

In Conversion Cotton

Rami

Generic Viscose

Leather

Recicled Cotton

Monocell®

Rayon

Mohair Wool

Recicled Wool

Organic Cotton

Spandex (elastane)

Natural Bamboo

TENCEL®

Virgin Nylon

Organic Wool

Wool

Silk

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renewablematter 16. 2017 The European Clothing Action Plan Raw Mat eri als

Ex tra ct io n Retailers & Brand: Fibre Strategy

Retailers: Recycled Fibres Municipalities: Textile Collection

Suppliers:

Textile Produ ctio n

Efficiency and Processes

C

g in th lo ng turi fac nu Ma

Re cyc lin g

Design for Longevity

r & Repai use Re-

on cti lle Co Consumers: Use, Care and Disposal

or Ret Se ail rvi ce

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Consumption

Public Procures: Circular Purchasing Criteria

chain’s main players: fibre producers, yarn spinners, textile producers, dyers, and water management plant producers. These are true success stories featuring small and large companies, some of which were recently established and others with histories dating back a century. They are all cases of “efficient fork use.”

The chapters on niche or emerging brands and leading big international brands, on the other hand, describe a partial map, limited to several illustrative cases, of fashion brand initiatives and profiles, the end users of materials, that are making the fashion market scene more sustainable. This sector is crucial considering that it is the demand and decisions of fashion brands to condition the behaviour of the whole supply chain.

One of the central players in this change is Greenpeace, the NGO which, in 2011, launched the Detox my Fashion campaign

to free fashion from hazardous, polluting chemical substances. Without a doubt, this controversial campaign was a blow to the sector, unexpectedly speeding up the journey towards sustainability.

Awareness of fashion’s environmental impact has risen, above all over the past decade, exploding suddenly, like a sort of unexpected tsunami. Matters and awareness that just a few years ago were completely inexistent in the sector – that, compared to others, began to deal with the issue late on – or limited to extremely small niche markets, are now essential for all big market leaders and are included in the most important magazines and at designer catwalk shows. This tsunami suddenly drove fashion onto new terrain, even if still in a confusing way, full of contradictions, with contrasting forced solutions and resistance, utopian, conservative behaviour, accelerations and decelerations, in an overall context with no consolidated structure as of yet.

Case Studies

51

Bottom: From Somewhere with Speedo – Creative project by Orsola de Castro and Filippo Ricci, in collaboration with Speedo.

Dress produced reusing materials from Speedo LZR Racer competition costumes, which went unsold after the changes made to international swimming competition regulations.

Limited edition, presented at Estethica 2011.

©Will Whipple

Top: Carmina Campus – Rings made with two gold-dipped tin can ring pulls and two different coloured imitation gemstones; can be worn on one side or the other.

Make/Use – Some patterns and illustrations from the collections which show the Zero Waste Design technique and garment versatility.

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renewablematter 16. 2017

What if sustainable fashion were cool?

Marco Ricchetti (edited by), Neo-materials in the circular economy: Fashion, Edizioni Ambiente, 2017; tinyurl.com/yaqb6njw

“Helping the planet doesn’t have to be painful” the organiser of a sustainable fashion event answered many years ago in an interview.

This matter is still relevant today and the awareness of consumers and end users is still a critical element. Large-scale environmental and social justice campaigns, from Greenpeace’s Detox my Fashion to those following the tragedy at Rana Plaza in Bangladesh which caused the deaths of over 1,200 workers who sewed garments for a great number of big brands, prompted sudden,

28 Detox fashion brands per market Sportswear

7% 25%

18%

Large-Scale Retails Channels Mass Premium Luxury

If not now, when?

21%

29%

53 leading DETOX suppliers per sector

2% 4%

Accessories Finishing

13%

Weaving Spinning

30%

25%

26%

greater awareness. However, the percent of those willing to pay a greater price for a more sustainable product has remained stable at between 10 and 20% of consumers, proving how difficult it is for the story behind the product to come to light.

Nevertheless, there is a new phenomenon, yet to be completely analysed, which involves fashion’s ability to inspire behaviour: products made with sustainable materials and technologies are starting to become cool. Recently an online magazine for young people who love urban night-life and the coolest parties – the world which is perhaps the furthest from traditional sustainability values – gave an example of this with a product, a trainer which is described as “already one of this season’s must-haves.” No reference is made, however, to the product’s sustainability.

This is a contradiction which probably opens up a debate which will create division in the field of those who desire a more sustainable economy: can the same phenomena and the same mechanisms, fashion and the megabrands, which are, mostly, at the root of the problem, also become a part of the solution?

Fibre Chemistry

Source: www.sustainability-lab.net

It is time. We have already crossed a boundary in the fashion industry and it is difficult to turn back once we have begun the journey. Some time ago, Rossella Ravagli, head of Gucci’s Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability Department, reminded Copenhagen Fashion Summit during a presentation that sustainability is a one-way journey, requiring investment into and organisational models for production chains which are difficult to accomplish, but which, for this very reason, are difficult to abandon once achieved. The principle expressed by fashion designer Bruno Pieters that “the story behind the design is as beautiful as the design itself” has become part of the fashion system.

We are lucky to be part of this movement, that still has a long way to go, but it is now a fundamental value for fashion.

Case Studies

Focus Fashion

JEANS

for Rent

New materials and business models, innovative, sustainable design and constant investments into research and development can rid fashion of its label as the world’s second most-polluting industry.

In Europe, some have been trying for years: by recycling, extending lifecycles and through product as a service.

by Antonella Ilaria Totaro 1. Ellen MacArthur Foundation Report, Towards the Circular Economy Vol. 2: opportunities for the consumer goods sector, January 2013.

Some countries outside the European Union are trying to take the same direction, like American outfit Le Tote (www.letote.com).

Swedish label Filippa K has been one of the leading companies in sustainable, circular fashion since 1993. As its founder, Filippa Knutsson, claims “inspired by my needs, I have created a brand with substance and truth which does not rely on the superficial trends of the fashion industry.”

Filippa K’s collections and models focus on lifespan, quality and style. After the brand’s second-hand shop opened in 2008, front-runners realised in potentially recyclable materials with today’s technologies, the take back (Filippa K Collect) and life extension (Filippa K Care) programmes, Filippa K debuted, in 2015, as one of the first companies in the world to have a “rental” programme, Filippa K Lease. A bit like the Netflix of clothes devised by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation,1 with Filippa K Lease you can rent certain collection items in certain brand stores

allowing customers to temporarily expand their wardrobe, without buying the garment, which they can return to the shop when they no longer need it.

However, the Swedish company is not the only one in North Europe to have seen a new business model in circular fashion. Amsterdam’s Lena Library is home to a sort of clothing rental service (or maybe we should start saying “fashion library”) where you can become a member and rent garments as needed. You can rent, for example, Mud Jeans, designed in Amsterdam and produced in Italy or Tunisia.

The Dutch company, that proudly defines itself “The first circular fashion brand in the world,” bases its business model on the “product as a service.” With a monthly membership fee of €7.50, you can rent your favourite pair of jeans (or more than one pair), return it after a year, get a new one

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renewablematter 16. 2017

Case Studies

Info www.filippa-k.com www.lena-library.com www.mudjeans.eu www.originalrepack.com www.hifesa.com www.recovertex.com wornagain.info

and send the used one back with reusable RePack packaging. This way, Mud Jeans keeps the ownership of the garment and revolutionises the role of the brand, which has to build a relationship with the consumer and continue to cultivate it after purchase.

The young are the most sensitive to the Mud Jeans model. “Our typical customer is an informed explorer who knows what is happening in the world and is seeking alternatives. They are well educated, aged 25+, and often live in big cities. Millennials are increasingly more important in terms of the identikit of our ideal customers. Rather than owning an object, millennials prefer an object to have a meaning, an object which is an experience” the company explains. Since the beginning, Mud Jeans have been designed to be recreated cyclically with upcycling, transforming them into vintage items or new products. According to data provided by Mud Jeans, while “the production of a pair of jeans requires 7,000 litres of water, 78% less is needed for the new Mud Jeans (1,554 litres of water) and 89% for vintage Mud Jeans (equivalent to 777 litres of water).”

Savings in water and raw materials in general, in addition to the upcycling of cotton scraps are

also key points for Hilaturas Ferre, headquartered at Banyeres de Mariola, near Alicante.

The family-run company, whose origins date back to the start of the 20th century, began to develop a system for recycling cotton scraps and creating new yarns in 1947. Four generations and many years of research and development were needed before the Recover Upcycled Textile System was launched in 2015. As Hilaturas Ferre Managing Director Alfredo Ferre claims: “With its Recover process, Ferre transforms textile waste into the best quality recycled yarns in the world.

With the upcycling textile system, Recover, we can create a whole series of products with the lowest ecological impact and the most competitive cost in the world.” Specifically, the Recover Upcycled Cotton Fibre allows for recovering cotton fibres without water use and the emission of greenhouse gases, while the ColorBlend® process allows textiles to be dyed without the use of chemical substances.

The recovered cotton is mixed with other fibres which generate a low environmental impact – such as recycled PET, recycled nylon and hemp – and transformed back into yarn. With textile scraps from across the world, Hilaturas Ferre produces yarns bought by, amongst others, H&M, Mango, Zara, G-Star Raw and Whole Foods Market.

“Recycling everything which already exists to create new items means not creating more waste, in a world where population growth and climate change could transform some materials, like cotton, into a luxury object.” This is the starting point for the work of Cindy Rhoades, founder of Worn Again, based in London since 2012.

As evidence of how much commitment is needed to improve the impact of the fashion sector’s production chain and how much big brands are also moving in this direction, Work Again, along with its global partners such as H&M, Kering and Nike, is developing and attempting to make textile recycling technology, which separates and captures fibres from old textiles and clothing, bringing them back to the state of raw materials and thus reintroducing them on the production chain as new. In other words, Worn Again aims to close the circle resolving the problem of clothes and textiles having an end of life.

As Rhoades says, “at the moment, we are mainly focusing on PET and cotton, both monofibre and mixed-fibre, the Holy Grail of recycled textiles, since around 35% of all clothing is made from a mix of polyester/cotton and around 75% is made of polyester, cotton or both. This does not mean that in the industry we will not then proceed to recycling other polymers.”

Worn Again and Recover’s work and the development of technologies that recycle garments and textiles are made more complicated by the fact that, often, the latter are made with a mix of materials which are difficult to separate.

We can overcome this limit only through investment into research and development and starting off from garment design.

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renewablematter 16. 2017 Interview

by A. T.

Respect your body, respect the environment Bav Tailor, stylist

Fashion and sustainability: how can we combine these two often contrasting elements?

“Sustainability is in my brand’s DNA. My brand’s slogan ‘respect your body + your sphere’ is completely dripping with sustainability: from research into materials to supplier chain transparency, from responsible design to production techniques directed at helping local Italian and global communities in need.

I’m trying to create awareness of the social impact

that everyone can have by wearing ecological clothes. The materials used in my collections are certified by third-party bodies as natural or recycled. Throughout the production process, the objective is always to minimise the environmental impact and promote sustainability.

Likewise in the distribution and sales phases.

“Most of my textiles come from Italy due to the premium quality of the materials. So I am aiming for the Eco-Luxury sector of the market and I invest in the reduced environmental impact of buying locally rather than overseas.

I prefer special materials like recycled fish skin, which is a by-product from fishing industry waste, or ecological wood, nettle, bamboo, hemp or eco-wool. For trimmings, I use recycled cotton buttons, natural wood and mother of pearl, zips and organic cotton yarn.”

How can fashion be more sustainable?

“Before developing a collection, designers must think about the brand’s social impact. Companies must introduce sound codes of conduct to their business models, focusing on the transparency and traceability of the production chain, research and development of materials, pay standards and worker safety.

“The fashion industry needs to promote more sustainable, more easily traceable materials.

Our suppliers should be obliged to certify raw materials, appeal to fair trade organisations and be encouraged to invest in the research and development of recyclable and/or renewable materials that leave a positive ecological footprint.

For example, one of the materials that I use is ‘New Life.’ It comes from recycled plastic PET bottles.

“Consumers can then become smarter by checking garment labels to understand where they have been made, checking stitching to ensure it is long-lasting and textiles to find out if they are natural, recycled and certified. We must demand sustainability from companies.

We need to love the clothes we buy, not just buy to have a bigger wardrobe. We must consider a purchase in terms of wearability. I believe that a garment’s life cycle should provide for at least thirty wears.”

What is the main challenge in this transition towards a more sustainable fashion industry?

“Living on different continents has made me more aware of the lack of respect for the workers, raw materials, and suppliers that are behind the scenes of the production chain. The challenge is to motivate companies to invest the money

Case Studies

Ethical Fashion Forum, www.ethicalfashion forum.com

Camera nazionale della moda italiana (National Chamber of Italian Fashion), www.cameramoda.it/en

spent by the consumer in human capital, social responsibility and economic justice. Companies and key influencers have the duty to make consumers aware of the impact that consumerism is having. We must create a movement – a mental approach where ‘less is more’.”

How important is the research phase?

“A brand’s ecological footprint derives completely from the research and development phase.

However, the cost of researching and developing more sustainable resources is very high and difficult for small brands to afford. My research, in this phase, is directed at supplying pre-existing recycled materials and natural, certified, and upcycled fibres. Now that my brand is growing, I am investing in researching and developing my own recycled materials using pre-consumption waste.”

Where can we find new materials?

“The global waste throughout industry is shocking.

We do not currently invest enough into researching how we can regenerate production discards and pre-consumption waste such as pineapple skin, regenerated cashmere or fish discards.”

Design: can we make clothes that last longer, or even forever?

“Clothes made with premium textiles, quality production techniques and simple designs can be made to last. My sampling and production processes strive, on one hand, to use recycled and upcycled materials, and on the other, to simplify designs and prototypes. Consumers also have to change their attitudes and take better care of garments so they last longer.”

What goal are you most proud of having achieved? And what is your next objective?

“I am proud that my brand has been recognised by the fashion and design industry as a sustainable Eco-Luxury brand by important sector bodies, like the National Chamber of Italian Fashion and ‘Vogue Italia.’

“My next goal is to create a chain reaction so that my message to respect human beings and our planet may reach influential people who enjoy visibility so we can create awareness and change together.”

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Photo: PIRO4D/Pixabay CC0 PublicDomain

Rethinking the Function of the FRIDGE

by Freija van Holsteijn

Every year, European households bin 84 million tonnes of food. Better food preservation can help cut waste and reduce at the same time energy consumption and environmental impact. But we need smart fridges able to exchange information with consumers when they stock fresh products and capable to provide directions on the best way to preserve them.

1. Kemna R., Holsteijn F. van, Lee P., Sims, E., Complementary research on household refrigeration – Optimal food storage conditions in refrigeration appliances, VHK in collaboration with Oakdene Hollins for the European Commission, Brussels, February 2017; tinyurl.com/nyem9fb.

Note that the information and views set out in this study are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Commission.

Over the last decades, the functionality of the home refrigerator has remained pretty much the same: a big cold box with a temperature between 4 and 7 °C, in which you store all food products you can’t keep at room temperature.

And although there have been important technical developments in the field of energy efficiency and refrigerants, its core functionality basically remained unchanged. In approximately 90% of the European households the home refrigerator still is that same 180 litre cold box.

But despite this cold storage, many fresh products are spoiled or have lost their freshness by the time we take them out of the fridge for consumption.

In the European Union consumers purchase 485 Mt food, of which 84 Mt (17%) is wasted and of which 52 Mt (11%) is avoidable.

Triple this amount of raw products is necessary to produce this food, so all-in-all we are talking about 156 Mt of raw products that are wasted but could have been avoided.

How can refrigerators contribute to the reduction of avoidable food waste if we redefine their core function? Instead of providing a 180 litre storage facility at a low (4-7 °C) temperature, the fridge becomes a storage facility for the purpose of keeping fresh food products in optimal shape for as long as possible.

Impact of food waste The study “Optimal food storage conditions in refrigeration appliances”1 that was published on February 2017, investigated the total EU food flows, their environmental impacts and the effects optimised storage conditions can have on food waste reduction in

Case Studies 2. Energy-related Products or ErP’s are products that consume energy (white goods, HVACproducts, motors, lighting, electric household appliances, etc.) or that have an indirect impact on energy consumption and are regulated by the European ErP-Directive.

households. Households play a major role in preventing domestic food spoilage.

In the European Union we waste about 160-170 kg/capita per year. This is almost 20% of our food purchases. Of course there are those inevitable bits like bones, peels or kernels, but all-in-all more than half can be avoided.

The impact of food and especially food waste is enormous.

When talking about waste, many people tend to make a big fuzz over – for instance – waste and recycling of fridges, electronics and other energy-related products (ErP),2 but actually this is peanuts compared to food waste.

In total 155 Mt of food is wasted in the EU, of which 71 Mt in the process and retail chain, and 84 Mt in the households.

This is more than all the waste that occurs during production and end-of-life disposal

of all regulated ErP’s, which is only 29 Mt. For ErP’s the waste during use-phase – mainly combustion waste – is the most important (see figure 1).

Looking at energy consumption, the annual production of 485 Mt of food requires 283 Mt of oil equivalent, which is about 17% of EU-total energy use.

The greenhouse gas emission for food production represents 1,071 Mt of CO2eq, which is around 25% of the EU total greenhouse gas emissions (see figure 2).

And finally household expenditure for food is more than four times the total average annual expenditure on energy and appliances. In short, if we can find ways to avoid the avoidable waste in food consumption, the gains in terms of energy, greenhouse gas emissions and money are significant.

Figure 1 | Waste production in Mt per year Food

ErP

End-of-life 14 Use-phase 91

End-use, avoidable 52

End-use, unavoidable 32 Process/retail 71

Production 15

Figure 2 | Greenhouse gas emissions in Mt CO2eq per year ErP

45% of EU total

Energy non-food ErP 1,732

Food

24% of EU total

Energy food-related ErP 268

Soils & other 244 Enteric fermentation 147 Manure management 80 Energy food-related non-ErP 332 Energy food-related ErP 268

Source of all charts and tables: Kemna R., Holsteijn F. van, Lee P., Sims E..

Complementary research on household refrigeration – Optimal food storage conditions in refrigeration appliances, VHK in collaboration with Oakdene Hollins for the European Commission, Brussels, February 2017.

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renewablematter 16. 2017 Tools for change Currently the fight against food waste at consumer level is mainly focussed on raising awareness and trying to change consumer behaviour. Although these are essential aspects, behavioural change is one of the most

difficult transformations to accomplish and generally demands a lot of effort, commitment and self-discipline from the consumer. Furthermore not all strategies for behavioural change are applicable to everyone. They need to be tuned to individual possibilities. Increasing shopping

Figure 3 | Estimated storage-practice for food and drinks in EU-households Estimate, in Mt/year

CHILLED DRINKS

ROOM TEMPERATURE 276 white wine 3 fruit juice 4

milk UHT 13

FREEZER

COLD 210

meat 16

vegetables 6

soft drinks 33

pizza 1

ice-cream 3

fruit 1

mineral water 38

ready meals 2

potatoes 4

beer 24

fish 3

white wine 3

beer 12

fruit juice 4

mineral water 17 soft drinks 17

milk UHT 6

coffee 2.2

red wine 6

vegetables fresh 7

potato chips 2.2

vegetables canned 10

salt 3

canned fish 3

oil, nuts 12

jam etc.

8 other diary 17

fish 2

butter 2

fresh juice 3

cream 2

pastry 7

sauces 4.4

margarine 2

FRIDGE

Temporary in fridge 59 (1/3 chilled drinks)

sugar 17

potatoes fresh 22

cheese 9

fresh milk 12

fresh fruit 27 vegetables 31

meat 16

Always fridge 115

Always room 161

bread/pasta/biscuits 41

ROOM TEMPERATURE

Temporary room 115 (2/3 chilled drinks) spirits 1.4 baby food 1.1 vinegar 1 tea 0.4 chocolate & sweets 5.2

CHILLED DRINKS

Always freezer 36

Case Studies frequency, for instance, and buying only what is needed for a short period of time could be a useful strategy for people with enough spare-time, but for households that only shop once a week this is not a feasible option.

In all cases it would be advantageous to have an adequate tool that directly interacts with the consumer when he stores his fresh food products and gives guidance on how the various products can best be stored.

A refrigerator with improved storage conditions and matching instructions can be such a tool, because it prolongs storage periods and provides more time for consumers to use their fresh food.

Nowadays over 85% of domestic fridges have a single fresh food compartment at a temperature of between 4 and 7 °C, depending on the setting of the thermostat.

For about half of the fresh food (and drinks) bought by households, this temperature is either too warm or too cold for best fresh food storage. Figure 3 gives an estimation of the current average storage practice of food and drinks in EU-households.

Estimations show that two-thirds, 326 Mt out of 485 Mt food and beverages purchased, is either permanently stored in fridge or, for beverages, at least chilled prior to serving.

How to improve What causes products to lose quality or become spoiled? Optimal storage conditions are conditions under which the deterioration process of fresh food products is slowed down, and under which food remains in good shape for as long as possible. There is a wide range of physical, chemical and microbial factors affecting food quality, spoilage and safety.

For storing fruits and vegetables three main factors are important: temperature, humidity and ethylene. Ethylene is also known as the “ripening hormone” emitted by ripening fruits (except e.g. grapes, citrus fruits, cherries). Fruits emitting ethylene can onset the ripening process of other fruits and cause leaf yellowing or brown spots on vegetables. A high relative humidity (of minimum 90%) is required to prevent moisture loss and – as a result – water soluble vitamins like vitamin C. The optimal storage temperature varies per type and, for most fruits, per stage of maturation (ripe, unripe).

Take tomatoes for example: Stored at low temperatures (<12 °C) for around 2 weeks they develop symptoms of chilling injury including irregular colour development, softening of tissue or even failure to ripen.

When tomatoes are stored at even lower temperatures, these symptoms develop faster: after 6-8 days at 4-5 °C. Tomatoes

are so-called “chilling sensitive” (sensitive to low temperatures above 0 °C) as are many other fruits and vegetables. If you wish to ripen your tomatoes a storage in the pantry (17 °C) is ideal. To expand their storage time and somewhat delay the ripening process, storage in the cellar (12-14 °C) is best.

Generally speaking, the higher the temperature the faster fruit ripens.

Meat and fish products on the other hand are not chilling sensitive and are best kept around -1 °C to keep microbial growth and discolouration (browning of red meat) at a minimum. Out of all food products, products of animal origin are most often involved in foodborne illness and therefore lowering the storage temperature would definitely benefit consumer health. Most dairy products are well kept at current temperature of 4 °C. However, cheeses are better stored at temperatures around 1-2 °C and eggs can even be kept at -1 °C. As consumer you do not want to worry about all these things. Clearly many of the safety and storage issues are already covered by food safety regulations and quality assurance guidelines in the food sector.

What you can do as consumer is to keep products in optimal shape after purchase, by applying the correct storage practice.

All that is needed is a proper fridge and concise storage instructions.

Freija van Holsteijn is a young researcher with a great interest in sustainable food systems.

She graduated in Animal Sciences at Wageningen University, performed research for the FAO at the Agriculture and Consumer Protection department, and currently works as Research Engineer Food for VHK in the Netherlands, a leading technical consultant in the EU on Ecodesign, Energy Labelling and related measures.

Extended shelf life When investigating the optimal storage conditions of all fresh products, it was found that by offering five different temperature zones and fitting all fresh products in one of these zones, food storage periods for certain food stuffs can significantly be extended.

The following five temperature compartments were defined: 1. -1 °C for meat, fish and eggs; 2. +2 °C for lettuce, certain vegetables, certain fruits but also cheese; 3. +4 °C a general fresh compartment for milk, yoghurt and butter; 4. +12-14 °C for citrus fruits, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, bell pepper, courgettes and aubergines; 5. +17 °C for quicker ripening of tomatoes and some fruits.

This implies that four more storage options for food would be necessary besides the standard 4 °C and -18 °C. Table 1 gives an overview of the best fit for fresh products to maximize storage periods.

When products are stored under these improved conditions, their storage periods can be prolonged. Of course the maximum prolongation very much depends on the way the fresh products were handled in the supply

it would be advantageous to have an adequate tool that directly interacts with the consumer when he stores his fresh food products and gives guidance on how the various products can best be stored. A refrigerator with improved storage conditions and matching instructions can be such a tool.

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renewablematter 16. 2017 Figure 4 | Average minimum storage days without spoilage for a traditional refrigerator and a ‘food-optimised’ refrigerator

Minimun days without spoilage

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19

8

18 Traditional fridge

11 15

6

6 4

7 4 Bread

5

4 Dairy & eggs

Meat & fish

Vegetables

“Food-optimised” fridge

Fruit

8

4 Fresh fruit juice

AVERAGE

Figure 5 | The average occupied refrigerator space expressed in litres (excluding leftovers and sauces etc.)

“Food-optimised” fridge 27% of fridge

Traditional fridge

Fresh food (4 °C) 37

20% of fridge

Pantry (17 °C) 7.5 Cellar (12-14 °C) 8.4 Fresh food (4 °C) 13.9

Salad chiller (2 °C) 11.8

Meat chiller (-1 °C) 7.6

chain, but as an estimate an increase of the storage period is expected by a factor of around 2 to 3. Figure 4 shows the expected storage times of various fresh product groups.

Storage volumes Do we need larger refrigerators if more fresh products are to be stored in the new multi-compartment fridge? Currently the average single compartment fridge of 180 litre has an average occupied volume of 37 litres, when related to the average shopping frequency and fresh products that are purchased; somewhat more directly after shopping and somewhat less just before purchase of new fresh food products. In other words, without including leftovers and sauces, around 20% of the fridge is occupied with fresh food. The storage volume of a “food-optimised” fridge will probably slightly increase to 27% occupied space, as products previously stored at room temperature will now be stored in the pantry or cellar compartment (see figure 5).

The occupied space for fresh food would increase from 37 to around 49 litres,

and in theory this would also mean that the new multi-compartment refrigerator consumes more energy, when all other parameters remain equal. But today’s fridge is – even taking into account peak usage – more than two times oversized. On average, the contents occupy only a quarter of the available refrigerated space. The existence of several different compartments within a fridge, at different temperatures, creates new energy saving opportunities, e.g. from cascading and re-using “waste cold” from defrosting.

All in all, it is considered achievable to reduce a significant share of the avoidable food waste by using multi-compartment refrigerators, without increasing its energy consumption.

Removing obstacles It is clear that many food products are currently stored under suboptimal conditions.

A “food-optimised” fridge with multiple temperature compartments can improve storage and help consumers reduce food waste. To get there, some obstacles need to be addressed on the following subjects: •• fridge design; •• Ecodesign and Energy labelling; •• setting of expiration dates.

Case Studies

Info www.vhk.nl

Cellar 12-14 °C

Pantry 17 °C

Strawberries

*

Broccoli, cauliflower, chicory

*

Carrots, beetroot

*

Cabbage, lettuce, spinach

*

Leek, green onions, celery

*

Mushrooms

*

Apples, pears, kiwi

*3

*

*

*4

Peaches, nectarines

*3

*

*

*4

Salad chiller 2 °C *

Bread

Meat chiller -1 °C

Cheese

Freezer -18 °C

Fresh 4 °C

Table 1 | Recommended storage temperatures for fresh food products

*

Meat

*

Fish & shellfish

*

Eggs

*

Milk

*

Yoghurt

*

Butter/margarine

*

Beans

*

Citrus fruits

*

Avocados

*

Bell peppers, cucumber

*

Courgette, eggplant

*

Onions

*

Potatoes

*

Bananas, pineapple, mango, melon

*

*4

Tomatoes

*

*4

3 4

Max. storage time.

Ripening.

As regards the design of a “food-optimised” refrigerator, the EU market will have to move away from the single-temperature fridge.

Some brands have developed fridges with special fresh produce drawers or chiller drawers for vegetables and meats respectively.

These R&D efforts can be further extended and the energy performance of multicompartment refrigerators can be further improved. Multiple compartments are necessary to truly meet the needs of the variety of fresh products. In a practical design, the cellar and pantry compartments could probably be divided internally and have a single door. The same goes for the fresh food and salad chiller compartments.

The meat chiller, carrying the most valuable food resources (meat and fish), would warrant a separate door. Together with the freezer, a compact design would feature four outer doors.

However, existing legislation on Ecodesign and Energy labelling penalizes multi-doors fridges by not taking into account inherently larger door-leakage energy losses than a single-door refrigerator. Policy makers should allow a multi-door correction factor for refrigeration appliances.

Thirdly, the full food waste saving potential cannot be reached if the expiration dates on food products are not being revised.

Harmonisation at EU-level of (parts of) setting “use-by” and “best-before” dates is recommended. For instance, comparable to today’s food labelling for frozen products, the use-by dates for meat and fish could differentiate between storage at +4 °C (traditional refrigerator) and -1 °C (meat chiller).

In conclusion, with supporting legislation multi-compartment refrigerators can become the perfect tool for households to reduce a significant portion of their current amount of avoidable food waste. In potential, the food optimised refrigerator can save more megatonnes of waste than is generated by all the energy related products that are regulated by the ErP-Directive.

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Focus PAPER

Clker-Free-Vector_Images CC0 Public Domain

Some excellent examples of circular economy applied to paper producing companies â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in the past some with the biggest environmental impact â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that have managed to redesign their entire production cycle. Thanks to innovation and circular management of material flows. And without neglecting the market.

Case Studies

DS SMITH: The Power of Less

by Ilaria N. Brambilla

Ilaria N. Brambilla is a geographer and an environmental communicator, collaborating with research institutes, communication agencies and with Italian and international newspapers on sustainability issues.

15 billion boxes produced every year, 5.4 million tonnes of paper, plastic, and other materials recovered and reused in the production cycle. All this reconverted in new packaging within 2 weeks.

Until about 20 years ago, the papermaking industry was regarded as one of the most detrimental sectors on the planet precisely because of the raw materials employed: cellulose and wood pulp provided by forests. Over time, however, a great deal has changed and the industry now boasts excellent cases of companies that have embedded sustainability and circular economy principles into successful business models.

DS Smith is a case in point. A British company founded in 1940, it has expanded to the point where it now operates across 36 countries, employing over 26,000 people. It deals with the production of paper and cardboard packaging, as well as the production of plastic packaging solutions. To support this, DS Smith has also

developed recycling networks to provide the raw material for its production processes.

A recycling pioneer for more than 40 years, the company has embraced sustainability wholeheartedly, closing its production cycle and publishing its first sustainability report in 2014. Its figures speak volumes: 15 billion boxes produced every year, with 5.4 million tonnes of paper, cardboard, plastics, and other materials put back into supply cycles through the Recycling division. In the case of its paperbased packaging and recycling, through its own operations, DS Smith can collect used packaging and recycle it back into packaging within two weeks of that packaging being discarded.

This is something DS Smith refers to as “Box to Box within 14 days.”

In line with its vision to be the leading supplier of sustainable packaging solutions, DS Smith’s

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renewablematter 16. 2017

Acting Locally: Croatia’s Example While expanding, DS Smith has not abandoned its philosophy – quite the opposite. After the acquisition of Duropack Packaging Group in 2015, the company has taken its activity integration model to Croatia.

In the last year, the company has recovered 100,000 tonnes of paper, metal, glass, plastic, aluminium and wood for recycling.

The Supply Cycle model has helped suppliers and customers to improve the efficiency of their waste management systems, thanks to training and the distribution of special containers for separate collection. Communication and local community involvement are crucial: in primary schools, DS Smith has carried on organising paper waste collection competitions that had already been going on for some years in the country, thus educating new generations about correct waste separation and sustainable lifestyles.

In this regard, Miles Roberts, DS Smith Group CEO, states: “We are dedicated to creating sustainable value for our people.

We are committed to the highest standards of safety, and are keen to ensure DS Smith is an engaging employer where our people can thrive and fulfil their potential.”

Case Studies

allineate in modo da garantire un’offerta di riciclo a ciclo chiuso, “da scatola a scatola”. La strategia è la continua innovazione per l’uso più efficiente possibile della materia: per quanto riguarda il cartone ondulato, fondamentale è la progettazione di imballaggi affidabili, che proteggano il prodotto senza impiegare più materiale del necessario.

Il tutto utilizzando fino al 90% di materia rinnovata per produrre imballaggi in cartone. Una visione che ha un motto: “The Power of Less”, “il potere del meno”, dove con “meno” si intendono gli sprechi, puntando invece a un maggiore riciclo.

La progettazione è supportata dalla gestione circolare dei flussi di materia, proprio perché la società gestisce internamente le operazioni di recupero e riciclo dei propri imballaggi a fine vita, reimmettendoli nel ciclo produttivo e dando luogo a nuovi prodotti. L’idea è quella di un sistema di approvvigionamento e produzione circolare e chiuso, che permetta di risparmiare sulla materia prima e di rivalorizzare la materia prima seconda.

Stefano Rossi, Ceo della divisione packaging in Europa, spiega: “In questo momento, più che mai, il pubblico sceglie non soltanto in base al prezzo o alla fedeltà a un marchio, ma in base alla riciclabilità del prodotto. Quindi, se in passato la sostenibilità era vista come un’attività accessoria, oggi i vantaggi di abbracciare una cultura del riuso e del riciclo sono estremamente reali, importanti e concreti.” La soluzione è semplice: “Creando ‘cicli’ di fornitura piuttosto che ‘catene’ di fornitura (o filiere). In questo modello circolare, dove altri vedono l’imballaggio usato come un rifiuto, noi lo vediamo come una risorsa.”

Il rifiuto come risorsa, paradigma dell’economia circolare, trova piena espressione nella divisione recycling della DS Smith. Jochen Behr, che la dirige, afferma: “Le nostre attività di riciclo, produzione di carta e confezionamento sono strettamente integrate. Ci impegniamo a mantenere i nostri materiali nel ciclo di fornitura il più a lungo possibile, di modo che il valore sia massimizzato, senza affidarci al recupero energetico come soluzione generica per il fine vita del materiale. Applicando la gerarchia dei rifiuti sia attraverso le nostre attività, sia attraverso quelle dei nostri clienti, possiamo ridurre gli sprechi e garantire che tutti i materiali che possono essere riciclati lo siano effettivamente. È qui che entra in gioco la qualità. Le economie circolari devono preoccuparsi dei processi produttivi e il riciclo è un processo produttivo.

Senza materie prime di qualità all’inizio del processo, ci sarà inefficienza e questo a sua volta creerà sempre più sprechi. Una raccolta differenziata dei materiali riciclabili fatta in modo approssimativo porta alla contaminazione e di conseguenza a materia prima seconda in ingresso di scarsa qualità. Nel peggiore dei casi, materiali di pessima qualità non possono essere riciclati e finiscono nei termovalorizzatori o in discarica. Quindi il nostro messaggio al settore è semplice: focalizzandosi sulla qualità dei materiali portati al riciclo massimizzeremo le opportunità di riciclaggio e contribuiremo alle ambizioni dell’economia circolare”.

Un’attitudine che DS Smith adotta in tutti i paesi in cui è presente, come nel caso della Croazia.

Info www.dssmith.com /it/recycling

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renewablematter 16. 2017

Focus Paper Illustration by Clovis-Cheminot – Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain

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Symbiosis

& Innovation The circular economy is beginning to change production supply chains in a radical way, moving, in the case of paper, innovation’s keystones.

by Sergio Ferraris

Crush, www.favini.com/ gs/en/fine-papers/crush/ all-about-crush

Sergio Ferraris, an environmental and scientific journalist, is director of QualEnergia.it

Industrial symbiosis. A concept that can be either narrowed to the known role, at industrial level, of partnership, or developed into a 360-degree view.

In the case of the circular economy, grafted onto sustainability, the latter solution is necessary in order to find solutions to today’s challenges. Indeed, because when low-intensity matter and energy sources are used, such as those derived from biomaterials or residues from industrial processing, it is necessary to exploit their full potential.

But it is not an easy thing to do, given the current production and market contexts. In order for the industrial practices linked to the circular economy to be effective they must abide by specific rules. First and foremost is that of the market, i.e. the extra cost compared to the well-established products, must not be extreme.

In the region of 10-15% at the most compared to conventional productions. The second is that of processes, i.e. the new productions must not clash with the existing ones both from a processing and a cultural point of view.

And the third rule is that of symbiosis, i.e. the intersection between matters and supply chains, which entails the existence of a shared background knowledge amongst companies.

These are three issues that most probably will be overcome over time, but today can become barriers that may hinder the “circular” spread of sustainable techniques and matters. Favini, a historic paper factory in Italy’s North East knows a thing or two about this. The company has been “contaminating” a well-established age-old product such as paper for years, through innovative practices, alternative materials and experimenting the intersection of supply chains, using natural raw materials which other industries consider waste and respecting the natural origin of paper while improving its sustainability and more and more its quality, both for end users and the environment. “At Favini’s we have four keystones characterizing the Crush process (the line of ecological papers made with agro-industrial by-products replacing up to 15% of cellulose from trees, editor’s note)” informs us Achille Monegato, Favini’s R&D director, talking about the industrial methods underpinning Crush papers. “In other words the product (basic raw material/secondary raw material, editor’s note), must be at the end of its life cycle in the original chain; it must be dry, evaluated and crushed.”

Case Studies Patented Keystones The above-mentioned keystones underpin Favini’s new sustainable production chain and patent for Crush papers allowing the company to act with new materials when the opportunity arises. This is what happened with Pedon Group, operating in the distribution of dry pulses.

An experience where needs, experiences and supply chains intersected.

“We did not approach Pedon – adds Monegato – but it was the agrifood company that contacted us. Favini was not aware of what Pedon’s production residue was: or rather, we had the wrong idea since, before the meeting we thought we would find pods or skins, while our raw material/secondary raw material was rejected pulses because blemished.”

In order to get an excellent product, specific supply chain knowledge was needed, i.e. a kind of paper made with 25% of pulses, suitable for food. An even more sustainable end product since it makes pointless to use virgin carrier bags to isolate food from its container as it usually happens with packaging produced with recycled materials if they are not suitable to come into contact with food. “A lot of experience is necessary – highlights Monegato – in order to detect what is interesting in other supply chains.”

Info www.favini.com/en

Communication about one’s activity is also important. And Favini’s experience is very interesting in this regard. “Veuve Clicquot – adds Monegato – was looking for a package which could also represent their new bio-champagne, while we, back then, had some difficulties in getting hold of algae (the raw material/secondary raw material used by Favini, over 20 years ago) because the eutrophication emergency in the Venice lagoon was over and we went back to France and Normandy where there was a similar emergency to the Adriatic. This hit the news which Veuve Clicquot saw on TV and they asked us if we were able to produce paper using their residue: de-alcoholised grape pomace.”

Valuable Communication The result is a kind of packaging whose production supply chain has itself such a communication value that is able to push the company to show it with infographic details on the container itself. These are just two examples, but the circular economy, in the case of paper but also for other materials, could change the very nature of the product, also – and especially – through industrial symbiosis.

This is what happened with Remake paper where two very different production chains intersect: the paper and leather sectors.

“I thought of leather when I read that collagen was fibrous and had a ‘left-handed helix with

a quaternary structure’ (the collagen consists of 3 polypeptide chains that twist together to form a three-stranded helix, editor’s note) – carries on Monegato – like cellulose.

So I said to myself: why don’t we try and combine these two fibres? That’s how we obtained a premium paper product, although we started from a different idea. Indeed, the original project was to produce a compostable kind of paper which could become feed for animals or used as fertilizers. In order to do so some organic nitrogen must be added.

And this is found in collagen fibres.”

The prospect is to use such experience to innovate not just high-end products for the luxury good sector, but also lower added-value products. “We could – Monegato concludes – produce a kind of paper for mulching in agriculture with could decompose in three rather than seven months. It would be an innovative product which could have a low price because paper for mulching cannot be expensive.”

Protagonist Market Here comes the market imposing also a price review, both for the end product and that of secondary raw materials which must have a low value when passing from a supply chain to the next: this is indeed a market issue. Adapting matter to several processes is a critical and crucial point. Drying, for instance, in Favini’s Crush production is crucial. Having to dry a by-product in order to make it compatible with the supply chain entails an energy cost, which affects its marketing and the environment unless, as it happens with Favini, renewable energy is used.

The destiny of paper with the development of the circular economy could be, through industrial symbiosis, that to become a composite material characterized by a specific innovation rate thanks to the movement of materials from one sector to the next.

This involves an upcycling process that is not just about matter, but also about the value of the product, which should not be overlooked.

This is a phenomenon that will open up unprecedented production scenarios for this sector, starting radical changes that ultimately shift the innovation focus of the sector from process (i.e. from machines) to materials and end products.

This is an important challenge because the increase in value of the end product, thanks to “waste of faraway supply chains,” could act as a powerful driver for the whole circular economy. Paper will play a twofold role as innovative forerunner and protagonist.

69

Focus Paper

GOOD FIBRE Packaging

A new wood-based material could soon replace plastic in carrier bags and other flexible packaging. PAPTIC is made of renewable raw-materials, it can be recycled and in hand it feels like a textile. An innovative solution from Finnish forests.

by Rudi Bressa

PEFC, www.pefc.org New Plastics Economy, newplasticseconomy.org

Every year 8 million metric tons of plastic end up in our oceans. Every year we use 1 trillion plastic bags, most of them only once. A constant stream of plastic waste, that is filling up seas and oceans.

“In a business-as-usual scenario – says The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the future of plastics, report produced by the World Economic Forum and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation –, the ocean is expected to contain one tonne of plastic for every three tonnes of fish by 2025, and by 2050, more plastics than fish.” In this scenario, EU adopted a Directive to reduce the use of plastic

bags and is providing investments on new technology, to develop the concept of an European bio-based economy.

Packaging also comes into play.

An increasingly important sector, not only from the point of view of companies using it to distribute and promote their products, but also from the consumers, who are more and more conscious of the sustainability aspect of what they buy.

For this reason the world of industry is investing in research and innovation, pushing designers, technicians and

Case Studies

Rudi Bressa is a freelance journalist and naturalist, who writes about the environment, science, renewable energy and circular economy for various national newspapers.

Info www.paptic.com

start-ups to produce new packaging concepts with improved and recyclable performance.

The Pulp & Paper industry, thanks to its own very nature and the raw materials used can be a good case in point.

PAPTIC was created against this backdrop at Espoo in Finland. “It is a revolutionary new fibre product, where the main ingredient is sustainable wood fibre.

It is a next generation packaging material that combines the environmental benefits of paper with the functionality of plastics, and tactile properties of textiles,” claims Daniela Bqain, PAPTIC®’s sustainability engineer. “Amongst sustainability and high quality appearance, PAPTIC is also heat sealable and durable. Furthermore, it is renewable and recyclable with cardboard.”

The raw material to produce it, in this case, comes from the Finnish northern forests managed by PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) or FSC (Forest Stewardship Council).

“PAPTIC is produced with the same machines producing paper, only with a slightly modified technology that started developing already at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland,” continues Bqain.

“The new technology is patented

by PAPTIC®.”

The Finnish start-up was created in 2015, as a spinoff of the Finnish research centre and in 2016 gained the financial support of Horizon 2020 European project EASME (Executive Agency for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises), for planning and engineering the industrial scale-up of PAPTIC production: €2.2 million in two years to achieve commercial scale production by the end of 2018.

It is expected a production of 20,000 tonnes

a year. “PAPTIC has excellent tactile as well as visual qualities,” explains Daniela Bqain.

“Plastics are not considered as high quality material, whereas PAPTIC brings high class brands the opportunity to work with a novel sustainable material, which is differentiated from plastic and paper by its textile-like touch and feel properties.” After the initial tests, in June 2016, the collaboration with Seppälä finally started, the famous clothing brand in Finland and Estonia that decided to replace plastic carrier bags with those made with the material from the Finnish start-up.

So, an innovative fibre material which could gradually replace the use of plastic in carrier bags and other flexible packaging.

It is estimated that every year at least 100 billion plastic carrier bags are used in Europe alone, and more than 80% only once. Such average means that every European citizen uses 180 carrier bags a year. For this reason, in 2015, the European parliament forced the member States to reduce plastic bags, by adopting several measures to achieve the objective of 90 bags per citizen by 2019 and 40 by 2025.

And Italy, in this instance, was the pioneering country in the reduction of disposable carrier bags, so much so that in 2011 was the first in Europe to ban their use.

“Today, plastic is used for a number of applications and I think that total replacement of such material will be absolutely impossible, because it has some indispensable qualities for certain products,” concludes Daniela Bqain. “But for the packaging sector I believe that the possibilities to use more sustainable materials is real and tangible.” And PAPTIC is proof of that.

71

Focus Paper

FROM SHEETS to Packaging to Newspapers

by Rudi Bressa

Currently, in Europe, 71% (57% worldwide) of paper is recycled.

It is made producing half the carbon emissions compared to 1990 and using raw materials sourced from certified forests or, in 54% of cases, from recycled paper. These figures of the paper industry make it a model to follow in the transition towards a circular bioeconomy. And CEPI shows the way.

Case Studies

Biobased Industries, www.bbi-europe.eu

Info www.cepi.org

The European Pulp and Paper Industry can be considered one of the bioeconomy beacons of the Old Continent.

The Pulp and Paper sector has a high rate of collection and recycling, uses raw materials sourced from European forests and is able to produce new materials capable of replacing, performance being equal, those derived from fossil sources. In the new European waste management panorama, 70% of urban waste will have to be recycled and prepared for reusing, while for packaging materials – such as paper, cardboard, wood, steel, glass and plastic – the target has gone up to 80% by 2030. Today, the paper sector is the closest to this target with a good 71.5% recycling rate, compared to the worldwide average of 57.7%. In Europe, each cellulose fibre is reused 3.5 times, turning from sheet of paper, to packaging and the very magazine containing this article.

“The European paper industry has a very clear vision for its future: leading the transition towards a low-carbon circular bioeconomy,” explains Alexander Kennard, CEPI (Confederation of European Paper Industries) Press and Digital Media Officer.

In February 2017, the confederation presented its new 2050 Roadmap with the goal of cutting the whole sector carbon emission by 80% while increasing the economic value of the Pulp & Paper Industry by 50%.

A clear step forward towards decarbonisation, able to uncouple economic growth from climate changing emissions, which in any case will need investments for €44 billion.

“Let’s take as an examples countries like Italy, where quality recycled fibres are an essential raw material in the paper production: in Europe achieving the circular economy will be crucial in order to carry on this vision and get easier access to recycled fibres and European funds made available for R&D.” Paper, naturally sustainable It is also encouraging to see the paper industry and the entire sector committed to reducing CO2 emissions and thus mitigating climate change: the sector has cut its carbon emissions nearly by half (46% compared to 1990) for each tonne of product.

Not only that, but ongoing improvements in water management, crucial resource in pulp and paper production, have made it possible to reintroduce into nature 92% of water used in production processes.

“Paper is the only material derived from a renewable source and widely recyclable.

Essentially, this means that our products – from virgin fibres to recycled ones – capture carbon keeping it in the cycle, something that no other production cycle can do,” continues

Ben Alexander Kennard. “Moreover, we must highlight the exponential growth of European forests, in the last decade the forested area has grown by the equivalent of Switzerland.

In Sweden for instance, for each cut tree, two are planted. This is not happening by chance, it is because forests owners and other final users have invested in sustainable management. Our vision for the future is to build a truly circular economy able to keep recycled fibres and the carbon they contain in the cycle for as long as possible.”

Target for the future? Increase recycled fibres while reducing economic impacts “Recycled paper currently represents 54% of raw material in this sector,” explains Kennard. “Obviously, there are limits as far as collection, recycling and reusing are concerned.” But there is still room for improvement; particularly in those European countries where collection is low, for example in France and South-Eastern Europe. “Together with our paper recycling sector partners we have set new ambitious recycling targets: 74% by 2020,” states Kennard.

To achieve this target, less virtuous States must improve: “This is why CEPI is working on the European project called ‘ImpactPapeRec,’ to implement and spread the best practice on paper separate collection to take it to the next level. Secondly, we are working on the reduction or elimination of contaminants along the entire recycling process.” But in order not to be too heavy handed with the industry, CEPI commissioned a study demonstrating how 40% of its profitability has been absorbed

by European regulations – it will be necessary to divert new investments, especially to R&D. “Such as the Biobased Industries Joint Undertaking that has allocated €3.7 billion to R&D. Necessary tools to guarantee the transformation of the European industry are there, but they must be better tuned to our programmes.” Only in this way, by the end of this decade, will the Pulp and Paper Industry be able to become a true leader in the European circular bioeconomy.

73

PIXNIO_Public Domain CC0

The Double Life of

PEACH and APRICOT Kernels Road gritting from the salt used for meat processing, biscuits from apricot kernels. The region of Emilia Romagna was the first in Italy to draw up a list of by-products that can be re-used as secondary raw materials in the production processes or as biofuels. Companies have thus the advantage of having to dispose of less waste and consequently less costs involved.

by Silvia Zamboni

Apricot and peach kernels, salt used for salting meat: since February 2017, in Emilia Romagna, they have no longer been considered special waste to be disposed of, originating from the processing phase of the agribusiness, but they have officially been upgraded to the status of by-products. In other words, potential materials to re-use in other production supply chains or for other purposes.

And since March, black liquor has been added to the list of matter recovery products. Black liquor is the liquid substance generated by the paper industry as a residue of wood leaching into the pools where pulp to produce paper is obtained. So, even this waste will enjoy a post mortem life.

In relation to innovative measures supporting the circular economy, Emilia Romagna is still at the forefront. On this occasion it has drawn up a regional list of by-products re-usable as secondary raw materials and/or biofuels, a unique tool in Italy, at regional level.

In particular, the files validated by the Region highlight by-products deriving

from them for each of these production processes. For example, from peach and apricot kernels, the so-called “bitter almonds” used in the confectionery industry to produce biscuits and other baked products and in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical sectors, while the external shells and the whole stones can be used as biomass as a fuel source and in plants for the production of biogas. In addition, stones are sent to a special manufacturing industry that carries out the shelling, i.e. the separation of almonds from their shell, an intermediate phase between pitting taking place in the jam and juice industries, for example, and the end use of empty shells and almonds in other production cycles.

As for the surplus of salt used in salting processes and the residues deriving from the ensuing desalting when aging is complete, it will be used for road gritting.

Last, black liquor – recognized at community level as an energy product and included by the Ministry for the Environment amongst combustible substances – through an evaporation process occurring in paper industries a high-density oil with a high calorific

Case Studies Deliberazione della Giunta Regionale Emilia Romagna 21st December 2016, n. 2260, Introduction of a Regional list of by-products, www.reteambiente.it/ normativa/27988 Determinazione dirigenziale Emilia Romagna, 31st March 2017, n. 4807, Approval of a Data Sheet for black liquor, www.reteambiente. it/normativa/28855 Determinazione dirigenziale Emilia Romagna, 13th January 2017, n. 349, Approval of a Data Sheet for peach and apricot kernel by-products, www.reteambiente.it/ normativa/28256 Dlgs 3rd April 2006, n. 152 “Norme in materia ambientale,” www.reteambiente.it/ normativa/2099 Decreto 13th October 2016, n. 264, www.reteambiente.it/ normativa/28331 S. Zamboni, “Regions and the Circular Economy,” Renewable Matter n. 8/2016; www.renewablematter.eu/ art/173/Regions_and_the_ Circular_Economy

value will be obtained, usable both in anaerobic digesters to produce a biogas particularly rich in methane molecules, and directly in furnaces as biofuel.

“We were not moved by the urge to be top of the class when we drew up the regional list of byproducts,” points out with modesty Cristina Govoni, manager for the legal service of the environment, waste, reclamation of contaminated sites and environmental public services of the Region, “but we were prompted by the representatives of business associations that, on the basis of their knowledge about the availability within the region of various by-products and their need to include them in the list to snatch them from their destiny as waste to dispose of.

Such factors were crucial in the establishment of supply sectors to be certified.”

The production processes to be certified are actually selected by the permanent committee for by-products made of Confindustria (Italian Industrial Federation), Coldiretti (Federation of Italian Farmers), Tavolo Regionale dell’Imprenditoria (Regional Roundtable of Entrepreneurs), the so called “Tri,” whose members include CNA (National Federation of Artisans), Confcommercio (Confederation of Enterprises, Profession and Self-Employment), LegaCoop and Confcooperative, Regione and Arpae (the agency of the environment and energy). It is a specific concerted table implemented in compliance with a regional law number 16 on the circular economy of September 2015 aimed at defining technical and management good practices that, in compliance with current national laws on waste, will be able to allow businesses to single out certain by-products within the various production cycles. In line with the priority of the law – prevention of waste production – the advantage is twofold: on the one hand companies can market their by-products while avoiding the economic burden of having to dispose of them; on the other, other companies can take advantage of them by using them as secondary raw materials or biofuels.

The list is open for registration to all regional businesses whose production process and ensuing substances or objects are in line with current national rules and regulations for by-products. A company must present a report showing technical characteristics of the substance or objects and production process originating it, the plant or the type of operation and management, in order to prove compliance with all conditions established by law (see art. 184 bis of Dlgs 152 of 2006).

Info ambiente.regione.emiliaromagna.it

In order to promote online registration, the Region has set up an on-line application procedure. After the regional technical assessment aimed at checking compliance

with all legal requirements, the company is issued a certificate proving the registration in the list. Such document can be used, for example, while goods are being transported as a sort of ID certifying the nature of the by-product of the transported material.

Clearly, should a third party authority notice any illegalities, normal sanctions would apply.

“The procedure we introduced is not by any means intended as exhaustive, so there may be by-products not registered in the regional list,” highlights Govoni. “Those registered benefit from a sort of public validation of compliance with the law, thus giving entrepreneurs of a certain supply chain a certain peace of mind,” she claims.

“The legal framework of the regional list of the by-products is still the ministerial decree 264 of 13th October 2016,” points out Govoni.

Come into force 2nd March 2017, such decree intends to “promote the use as by-products of substances and objects deriving from a production process and that meet certain criteria,” as well as to ensure better consensus in the interpretation of the application of the definition of “waste,” stating that “the ways through which the owner can show the general conditions of a by-product are met,” as “production residue which does not constitute waste in compliance with article 184-bis of legislative decree of 3rd April 2006, n. 152.”

Furthermore, decree 264, with article 10 (“Platform of exchange between supply and demand”), entrusts Chambers of Commerce with the task to promote the trade and exchange of by-products by setting up a dedicated list where producers and users of by-products can register with no costs involved.

In such legal framework, which is the “business name” the list is based on, “the Region is doing another thing and is taking a further step forward,” highlights Govoni. If the national law establishes legal norms according to which a production derivative can be classified as a by-product, “the regional list works as an added tool aimed at promoting the knowledge of such opportunity.” In other words, through the activity of the permanent committee where entrepreneurs on the one hand and certification of production processes of by-products on the other are represented, the relevant supply chains are made aware that what could be mistaken for waste, if acting according to the law, actually are legitimate by-products.

After only a few weeks from its coming into force it is clearly impossible to assess the impact the list will have for the reduction of waste production. Only time will tell: Emilia-Romagna region expects that by 30th June of each year the registered companies will send a report with data on by-products originated by the previous year’s production process. The countdown has started.

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76

renewablematter 16. 2017

Columns The Media Circle

When the States Invade Canada Roberto Giovannini, journalist, writes about economy, society, energy, environment, green economy and technology.

We live in a very strange world: in the past, TV series scriptwriters had to stretch their imagination far and wide in order to create thrilling or frightful story lines. But a few days ago, the actress Robin Wright, wife and opponent of “President” Frank J. Underwood in House of Cards, stated that Donald J. Trump “stole all the ideas for the sixth season” of the drama series.

It is hard to deny that at this rate there are tangible risks that reality overtakes fantasy.

So it seems appropriate to devote this section on how the environment and climate are sneaking into the collective imagination through media, to a comic strip and a TV series that have recently portrayed terrible scenarios. Or maybe not.

The comic strip is We Stand Guard, written by Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by Steve Skroce.

To “stand on guard” are Canada’s citizens, who must keep a close watch on the decidedly aggressive intentions of their giant neighbour, the US. The plot is set in a disconcerting but unfortunately plausible future, in about one hundred years from now: apparently the fight against global warming does not seem to have gone very well, the climate has changed and despite huge technological progress, the US have been devastated by a drought. In Salt Lake City, Utah, skirmishes between the police and demonstrators in front of the federal centres where potable water is distributed occur on a daily basis and the super green North East of the United States has become some sort of desert.

Vaughan is an American and knows his countrymen’s bad habit: if you need something important, you have to grab it, by any means necessary, with very little qualms. And in the 2112 parched world there is still a place with a lot of water. A pacific, not much armed and very near country: Canada. So the Americans first think of an excuse – an attack that blows up the White House, the first step of an alleged Canadian intention to attack the US – then they launch a flying armada destroying the main Canadian cities followed by a super powerful army of mecha-robot resembling imperial AT-ATs accompanied by digital marines equipped with exoskeletons. Once all resistance has been crushed and the few living civilians are imprisoned, here fly huge flying tank pumps, which have to suck water from the precious lakes of Canada’s Great North, in order to give it to thirsty Americans, offshoots of US generations who ignored climate change, thus condemning

their country and the whole planet to an ecological disaster. Opposing the Leviathan is only a handful of warriors, ready for anything to ward off the arrogant invader. And this is as far as I will go: for our readers who are interested I am not going to spoil the plot of We Stan on Guard which – I guarantee you – is an entertaining TV comic, full of turns of events and a twist ending.

In the comic strip the baddies were the United States, albeit in one hundred years. The TV series broadcast with great success in Norway Okkupert (i.e. “The occupied” or the invaded), is set in the present day with more traditional baddies, i.e. Vladimir Putin’s Great Mother Russia.

A Russia that – after Norway’s decision to stop producing hydrocarbons – asked by an evil European Union invades the peaceful Scandinavian country.

The series – Norway’s most expensive TV film production – was a huge hit and they are already working on the second season. Here’s the story line. After a devastating hurricane caused by climate change hitting Norwegian coasts, elections are won by the green party. Meanwhile, Norwegian scientists set up new super clean thorium-based nuclear power stations.

The new green Prime Minister opts for a surprise move: he closes the taps of oil production and natural gas and shares with the world the miraculous invention of clean energy.

An apparently very good move, which causes havoc on international markets nonetheless, enraging finance, energy magnates as well as the leaders of France and Germany and the whole of the European Union, swamped with an energy crisis. The Norwegian Prime Minister does not realize that he got himself into a big planetary mess, even more so because now the US President is an isolationist (really?).

So, at the end of the press conference where he announced his super green decision, he is kidnapped by a commando sent by Moscow and released provided that he reactivates the old energy policies accepting the European Union’s diktat.

Honestly: the world is strange. It’s dangerous.

And the climate change will make it even more troubled.

Columns

Innovation Pills

The Hard Things to Say Federico Pedrocchi is a science journalist.

He directs and presents the weekly programme Moebius broadcast by Radio 24 – Il Sole24 ore.

Progetto Crew, www.progettocrew.it

I took part in an experience of co-planning where I worked together with colleagues who were responsible for internal as well external communication. A project funded by Fondazione Cariplo named “Crew.” The objective is to study tools for disability by gathering together all the subjects dealing with every single project.

Male and female researchers, disabled people and their associations, stakeholders such as, in some instances, teachers, decision makers in health care bodies. Since the very start each group has got to work by mingling all competences.

The co-planning approach changes results.

Although not yet very popular, it is growing.

There is a spurious version that may be defined as “open” to users, which are the central subjects for the final objective. In our project they were the disabled. Spurious means just that: there is a research team working on the tools to offer. Members are sensitive towards users so they summon them in order to test their proposals. In this way acceptable results may be obtained, but the team lacks one important factor which can multiply the overall effectiveness: the empathy which can emerge from constant attendance, since the very beginning, a kind of empathy generating technical quality of the end product.

For a simple reason: the disabled only tell part of their thoughts and emotions. They have a long story, characterised by the surrounding context and loaded with old images and burdens that stretch back into the past. In the absence of suitable definitions, a feeling of shame is the closest we can get to describe it.

Nowadays we certainly pay much more attention to the differently abled. If you consult Teche Rai, the national TV archives for programmes broadcast in the early 50s of the last century, you’ll find footage of shows where Adriano Celentano imitates a lame person walking while everybody laughs. We have had very successful comedians, famous for one stuttering character, let alone the numerous hunchbacked in a vast number of films. Or the “village idiots” slapped by the so-called normally intelligent.

But the scenario is huge and diversified, ranging from flat feet to bandy legs, the panorama is endless. Things have changed considerably. But deep down, there is still something brewing.

The hard things to say, as the title reads.

One of the projects researched into by one of the planning groups is a floatation tool to enable people with severe limited mobility to use a swimming pool. For a man or a woman spending their whole life with serious mobility issues, floating is a highly pleasant condition.

Severity is the most aggressive physical phenomenon of mobility difficulties.

Water mobility, though, may come with a very unpleasant occurrence for the disabled: partial or total lack of control over one’s excretions.

And a polluted swimming pool must be emptied, cleaned and filled up again, by law.

When there is an open, sincere and close dialogue, these problems do emerge and it is possible to work towards a very precise solution.

All things considered, this describes a tool of knowledge that is far from being difficult to implement. What I mean is that it took over 2,500 years of accumulation of knowledge and technologies before obtaining an extraordinary tool of knowledge such as a particle accelerator. On the other hand, taking into consideration that a comfortable, sensitive and generally not very competitive human “habitat” – if we accept to co-plan we clearly need to tone down our points of view – is something that is just potentially around the corner, albeit not very applied.

Mind you, the central aspect here is not that co-planning is a humanely nice thing.

We will talk about that another time.

The thing is that it works better.

77

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