Environmental Sustainability Assessment of Bioeconomy Products and Processes – Progress Report 1

The present document compiles the main outputs of the environmental sustainability assessment in the framework of the Bioeconomy Observatory as at the end of 2014. The selection includes fourteen environmental sustainability factsheets and a brief explanatory document that provides an overview of the structure and content of the factsheets. This corrigendum to the original report issued in 2015 is the result of exchange and consultation with external experts on the technical content of bio-based factsheets.JRC.B.6-Digital Econom

Environmental Sustainability Assessment of Bioeconomy Products and Processes – Progress Report 1

The present document compiles the main outputs of the environmental sustainability assessment in the framework of the Bioeconomy Observatory as at the end of 2014, for the purposes of the EU Bioeconomy Investment Summit 2015. The selection includes fourteen environmental sustainability factsheets and a brief explanatory document that provides an overview of the structure and content of the factsheets.All these documents were already approved in PUBSY (PUBSY Ref. JRC93246).JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

Prevention of Waste in the Circular Economy: Analysis of Strategies and Identification of Sustainable Targets - The food waste example

This report continues and further advances the work conducted by the JRC in the field of sustainable management of food waste, which resulted in the publication of the 2015 report “Improving Sustainability and Circularity of European Food Waste Management with a Life Cycle Approach”. It focuses on the broad European waste management context and, in particular, provides insight and analysis on the sustainability of food waste prevention strategies. Among other municipal waste streams, food waste gained prominence in the political debate in light of the recent Circular Economy (CE) package. In fact, the CE Action Plan included food waste within the so-called “priority areas”, i.e. areas that should be carefully considered to strengthen the circularity of the European economy. Against this background, this report analyses and evaluates the efficacy of some selected strategies for food waste prevention implemented at Member States’ and regional levels. A streamlined ‘stakeholder analysis’ is also developed in order to identify the most relevant stakeholders along the food supply chain and analyse their influence/relation with the mechanisms that lead to food wastage. Moreover, the report presents a novel and straightforward life cycle based methodology that helps identifying sustainable targets for food waste prevention in different contexts. The analysis of food waste prevention strategies being implemented by Member States and presented in this report seems to indicate that reducing food waste generation is a very complex to achieve in practice. The key reasons for this are the complexity of the food supply chain and the fact that a variety of integrated and well-coordinated measures that involve all stakeholders along the food supply chain need to be adopted to effectively tackle the problem. Moreover, sometimes the lack of reliable and coherent data is posing a threat to the successful identification of the most appropriate measures. It is also noted that food waste prevention measures are often set without considering how their implementation will influence the sustainability performance of food waste management. On the other hand, this report stresses that the definition of food waste prevention targets should follow the definition of the desired improvement of the overall sustainability performance. Towards this goal, the methodology presented in this report tries to identify environmentally sustainable targets for food waste prevention that allows achieving a given reduction of the environmental impacts along the food supply chain.JRC.D.3-Land Resource

Environmental Sustainability Assessment of Bioeconomy Products and Processes – Progress Report 2

The present document compiles the main outputs of the environmental sustainability assessment in the framework of the Bioeconomy Observatory as at the end of 2015, as approved under PUBSY Ref. JRC96713. The selection includes eleven environmental sustainability factsheets and a brief explanatory document that provides an overview of the structure and content of the factsheets.JRC.H.8 - Sustainability Assessmen

Improving Sustainability and Circularity of European Food Waste Management with a Life Cycle Approach

In the past years, several research initiatives have been promoted in the area of food waste. Many of these were focused on the identification of key drivers of food wastage and on the quantification of food waste generation. While these initiatives provided fairly accurate information over European food waste generation and management routes, they did not always deliver comprehensive and comparable knowledge on the sustainability of food waste management and on ways to mitigate negative consequences at environmental, economic and social levels. Building on most recent methodological advancement and policy needs, the work presented in this report aims at providing policy/decision makers and waste managers with a life-cycle based framework methodology to quantify the environmental and economic sustainability performance of European food waste management. This methodology can help identify options for improvement of such performance, thus can offer relevant insight to the decision making process. A numerical case study is also developed. This is meant to give an example of simplified application of the proposed methodology to a fictitious European waste management context. The environmental dimension has been evaluated with the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) software EASETECH, while the economic assessment is conducted based on a number of different indicators expressing the costs associated with food waste management. This methodology makes use of multi-objective optimization and Pareto optimality concepts in order to help identify most sustainable management options for food waste, intended as those that minimize environmental and economic impacts. In any case, the proposed methodology is meant to only provide relevant information that can support science-based decision making. The final choice will in fact depend on a number of additional aspects that are beyond the scope of this report and also depends on the preferences of the decision maker.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

Raw Materials Information System (RMIS): towards v2.0 - An Interim Progress Report & Roadmap

The European Commission's (EC) Raw Materials Initiative (RMI) emphasises that raw materials are essential for the sound and sustainable functioning of Europe’s industries and, in a broader context, of Europe’s economy and society. The EC is committed to promote the competitiveness of industries related to raw materials. These industries play an important role in many downstream sectors in the European Union (EU) such as construction, chemicals, automotive, aerospace, machinery, pharmacy, equipment, renewable energy devices, and defence. These sectors have a combined added value of around EUR 1,000 billion and provide employment for some 30 million people. Securing the undistorted supply of raw materials and, in particular, Critical Raw Materials (CRM) is thus crucial and requires a sound and continuously updated knowledge base, namely the European Raw Materials Knowledge Base (EURMKB), as highlighted in the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials, in its Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) from 2013, particularly in the Action area no. II.8. In this context, and responding to a specific action of the 2015 Circular Economy Communication, the EC's Directorate General (DG) Joint Research Centre (JRC), in close collaboration with DG GROWTH, is advancing its Raw Materials Information System (RMIS). The first version (hereinafter referred to as RMIS 1.0) was launched in March 2015. The advanced RMIS (hereinafter referred to as RMIS 2.0) intends to become a one-stop information gateway and knowledge service centre for non-energy, non-food primary (e.g. extracted through mining) and secondary (e.g. recycled, recovered from mining waste) raw materials and materials/commodities. RMIS 2.0 will (a) support European Union (EU) policy with tailor-made products like the Raw Material Scoreboard and CRM assessments, and (b) to help coordinate other EU level data and information on raw materials. The EU policy support will rely on knowledge from the EUKBRM. This will be made available directly in the RMIS from different sources. The coordination role will be jointly developed with Member States, industry representatives, and other stakeholders, e.g. hosting an entry point to the EURMKB and by further coordination activities with focus on compilation, presentation and application of EU level data. Towards the launch of the RMIS 2.0 (foreseen in the 4th quarter of 2017), this “Interim Progress Report & Roadmap” presents the up-to-date development of the RMIS, including the key policy support knowledge needs that shall be fulfilled, and starts linking identified (EURMKB) knowledge needs with knowledge providers. It also presents foreseen key building blocks for the policy support and several development milestones of the RMIS 2.0 (as of February 2017). The key building blocks focus on a number of themes, including: Critical Raw Materials (CRM) and criticality analysis; Material Flow Analysis (MFA) including the EC Material System Analysis (MSA); the Raw Materials Scoreboard; trade policy aspects; material efficiency and secondary raw materials; sustainability aspects; business & industry; Research & Innovation (R&I); and the policy context. With a view to reinforce synergies and stregthen cooperation with raw materials knowledge providers, as well as with other relevant stakeholder groups (including RMIS users), the first RMIS international workshop will take place in March 2017. The aim of the workshop is to present progress and the foreseen development milestones, as well as to discuss the frame and concept of the cooperation with stakeholders.JRC.D.3-Land Resource

Critical Raw Materials and the Circular Economy – Background report

This report is a background document used by several European Commission services to prepare the EC report on critical raw materials and the circular economy, a commitment of the European Commission made in its Communication ‘EU action plan for the Circular Economy’. It represents a JRC contribution to the Raw Material Initiative and to the EU Circular Economy Action Plan. It combines the results of several research programmes and activities of the JRC on critical raw materials in a context of circular economy, for which a large team has contributed in terms of data and knowledge developments. Circular use of critical raw materials in the EU is analysed, also taking a sectorial perspective. The following sectors are analysed in more detail: mining waste, landfills, electric and electronic equipment, batteries, automotive, renewable energy, defence and chemicals and fertilisers. Conclusions and opportunities for further work are also presented.JRC.D.3-Land Resource

Assessment of the Methodology for Establishing the EU List of Critical Raw Materials - Annexes

This report presents the results of work carried out by the Directorate General (DG) Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (EC), in close cooperation with Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (GROW), in the context of the revision of the EC methodology that was used to identify the list of critical raw materials (CRMs) for the EU in 2011 and 2014 (EC 2011, 2014). As a background report, it complements the corresponding Guidelines Document, which contains the “ready-to-apply” methodology for updating the list of CRMs in 2017. This background report highlights the needs for updating the EC criticality methodology, the analysis and the proposals for improvement with related examples, discussion and justifications. However, a few initial remarks are necessary to clarify the context, the objectives of the revision and the approach. As the in-house scientific service of the EC, DG JRC was asked to provide scientific advice to DG GROW in order to assess the current methodology, identify aspects that have to be adapted to better address the needs and expectations of the list of CRMs and ultimately propose an improved and integrated methodology. This work was conducted closely in consultation with the adhoc working group on CRMs, who participated in regular discussions and provided informed expert feedback. The analysis and subsequent revision started from the assumption that the methodology used for the 2011 and 2014 CRMs lists proved to be reliable and robust and, therefore, the JRC mandate was focused on fine-tuning and/or targeted incremental methodological improvements. An in depth re-discussion of fundamentals of criticality assessment and/or major changes to the EC methodology were not within the scope of this work. High priority was given to ensure good comparability with the criticality exercises of 2011 and 2014. The existing methodology was therefore retained, except for specific aspects for which there were policy and/or stakeholder needs on the one hand, or strong scientific reasons for refinement of the methodology on the other. This was partially facilitated through intensive dialogue with DG GROW, the CRM adhoc working group, other key EU and extra-EU stakeholders.JRC.D.3-Land Resource

Bioeconomy Report 2016

First report providing horizontal analysis of the EU Bioeconomy • The Bioeconomy cuts across several economic sectors, academic disciplines and policy areas. • Bioeconomy R&I are heavily supported by EU funds • The EU bioeconomy provides more than 18 million jobs with overall decreasing tendency due to structural changes, e.g. in agriculture • The EU bioeconomy creates a turnover of 2 trillion € with increasing tendencyJRC.D.6 - Knowledge for Sustainable Development and Food Securit