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As the concept for circular economy gains traction in the world and the EU pushes for the transition from a linear economy to a circular economy model, the role of waste-toenergy is crucial in a circular economy as it is the last chance to extract value out of material at the same time as providing an alternative energy source, henceforth bringing together a closed-loop system. A functioning circular economy will also have minimal waste generated which is sync with the idea of zero-waste. How all these aspects really work together is the focal point of this Master’s thesis where the aim is to see how the three factors of waste-to-energy, the circular economy and a zero-waste goal work together in accomplishing their respective objectives and to access their performance and potential in Finland using other Nordic countries as benchmarks. A qualitative research method of four semi-structured interviews with experts in Finland involved in various circular economy was supported by secondary sourced data on the other Nordic countries and if found that WtE has additional benefits to Nordics compared to other countries due to district heating utilization of excess steam that provides heat during the long winter months so henceforth offers higher energy efficiency. The state of the circular economy in Finland was harder to ascertain with the difficulty in showing concrete examples of a CE due to misunderstanding of the relatively new theoretical term and the many related terms. The overall conclusion for Finland was that a zero-waste goal was not the correct aim to have as this could still mean high incineration, instead Finland should look at the exemplarily example of Denmark which aims to be incineration free in the future. There would still be a role for WtE, only to a less extent, dealing with hazardous and residual waste. The role of recycling will grow in line with a true CE model which means that energy sourced from WtE will decline, As a result Finland should plan accordingly and invest less in WtE infrastructure and more in other alternative energy sources.

Beyond the urgency of rethinking XX-century urbanization characterized by endless structural expansion strategy, we need to engage urban systems by means of emerging concepts of adaptability and systemic transitions due to climate change effects. Emission reduction and spatial compactness, reuse and recycle, flexibility and complex balances have a profound impact on the spatial dimension and the quality of the urban environment, therefore architectural and urban design are deeply involved in facing ecological transitions and envisioning new strategies to implement the quality of the cities we live in. How to face these emergent challenges? What are the ongoing design strategies for climate change effects? what will be the role of design in transitional systems? Do we recognize it as an opportunity to improve the public space? Design Actions for Shifting Condition is a collaborative effort, and aims to present, from an architectural and urban design point of view, methodologies, practices, and approaches to overcome existing and new fragilities for Cities in Times of Transition. Theory, Territories & Transitions Projects

During their lifespan, products can cause severe environmental and social impacts in all stages of their lifecycle. The circular economy with its focus on closing and slowing material and energy loops is a means to reduce these broad impacts. Circular economy forms the basis of the EU’s ambitions to reconcile present economic activities within the planetary boundaries while meeting its aim for climate neutrality by 2050. Electronic and electronics equipment is a key product focus area for the European Commission, during the waste stage. Similar to other EU Directives, current electronics waste legislation will be updated in the coming years. The transition to a circular economy will require new and modified roles and responsibilities for actors, e.g. government, businesses and citizens. This report provides a detailed exploration of the governance issues within the current electronics waste policy, focusing on the instrument of extended producer responsibility. Through three detailed case studies of Italy, France and the Netherlands, the key organisational and policy features are explained, and the strengths and weaknesses are outlined. Based on the analysis of the case studies, we argue the subsequent developments for extended producer responsibility for waste electrical and electronic equipment to include the four followings aspects in its development: 1. Introducing the modulation of fees at the European level: the fee paid by producers for the collection and recycling of their products should be modulated based on the circularity and sustainability of the product in question. Fee modulation is allowed under the current EU WEEE law. However, it is not applied systematically. This is already done in France for EEE based on the standardisation of components, weight and specific materials. Fee modulation guidelines have been developed by the OECD. However, the key aspect to the ability of the fees to affect product design is the size of the fee. Studies have illustrated that current fees are between 0.2 and 2% of the product price. Higher levels of fees, e.g. more than the 2% product price, combined with a visible fee are recommended to be implemented at the EU level; 2. Broadening the scope of which actors are included in national EPR systems while promoting high R-strategies: the types of actors and responsibilities within the extended producer responsibility schemes need to be broadened. This is possible under EU law and has partly been done in France, where civic actors are now included in the functioning and directing of the schemes. However, the transition to a circular economy requires the promotion of more than just recycling of EEE to the other R-strategies. This requires systematically integrating the other economic actors in the design and functioning of the system, e.g. Repair, Remanufacturing etc.; 3. Measures to promote the highest value recycling of collected WEEE: products that reach their end-of-life they need to be effectively collected and treated to the best standard. The current targets and quality measures promote the collection and recycling of electronics based on mass, not on a specific material or quality criteria. A standard for the treatment of WEEE EN 45558 is available, although it is not mandatory. We recommend this standard be made mandatory across the EU. In addition, we call for a systematic pan-EU assessment of available and future recycling technologies, possibilities for urban mining from WEEE, and funding options needed to direct this, specifically in the area of critical raw materials recovery from electronics; 4. Expanding the scope of EPR beyond national borders: the scope of extended producer responsibility schemes needs to be expanded to account for the multiple uses of the product and the responsibility when products move internationally. While EPR has shown great ability to shift WEEE away from landfilling. The complexity of systems, rules and their enforcement between member states and beyond has led to varying national rules and issues of transparency between jurisdictions. The quantity of producers, importers, distributors and second-hand sellers makes the tracking and monitoring of WEEE within and between national jurisdictions challenging, especially for the export of collected and secondary products. In particular, this relates to the need for a solid understanding of the quantities of WEEE moving between jurisdictions and suitable mechanisms in place to finance the appropriate disposal. The highly international nature of WEEE supply chains and global trade and flows of WEEE have led some to call for a ‘global EPR’ or ‘ultimate producer responsibility’ system.

The global forest carbon (C) stock is estimated at 662 Gt of which 45% is in soil organic matter. Thus, comprehensive understanding of the effects of forest management practices on forest soil C stock and greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes is needed for the development of effective forest-based climate change mitigation strategies. To improve this understanding, we synthesized peer-reviewed literature on forest management practices that can mitigate climate change by increasing soil C stocks and reducing GHG emissions. We further identified soil processes that affect soil GHG balance and discussed how models represent forest management effects on soil in GHG inventories and scenario analyses to address forest climate change mitigation potential.Forest management effects depend strongly on the specific practice and land type. Intensive timber harvesting with removal of harvest residues/stumps results in a reduction in soil C stock, while high stocking density and enhanced productivity by fertilization or dominance of coniferous species increase soil C stock. Nitrogen fertilization increases the soil C stock and N2O emissions while decreasing the CH4 sink. Peatland hydrology management is a major driver of the GHG emissions of the peatland forests, with lower water level corresponding to higher CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the global warming potential of all GHG emissions (CO2, CH4 and N2O) together can be ten-fold higher after clear-cutting than in peatlands with standing trees.The climate change mitigation potential of forest soils, as estimated by modelling approaches, accounts for stand biomass driven effects and climate factors that affect the decomposition rate. A future challenge is to account for the effects of soil preparation and other management that affects soil processes by changing soil temperature, soil moisture, soil nutrient balance, microbial community structure , processes, hydrology and soil oxygen concentration in the models. We recommend that soil monitoring and modelling focus on linking processes of soil C stabilization with the functioning of soil microbiota. Peer reviewed

Modern conceptions of progress, based on the dominant Cartesian reductionist paradigm, are associated with a linear drive towards ever greater ascendancy, order, organisation, homogeneity, hegemony, performance, efficiency, and control. Similarly modern conceptions of progress are associated with positivist approaches to overcoming and extinguishing disorder, inchoateness, uncertainty, redundancy and risk. In this framework, diversity is conceived as a threat to system organisation, efficiency and control. Many contemporary conceptions of sustainability and sustainable development, framed within this paradigm, envisage sustainability as aligning with such ideas of progress. By this narrative, sustainable systems are achievable through ever greater efficiency, through for example, technological prowess, improved organisational structure/control, taming of “big data” and through risk reduction/extinction. Similarly, corporate sustainability would be advanced through growth, mergers and acquisitions, rationalisation, pruning of smaller operations/sites within firms, layoffs, increased corporate control, accountability and managerialism. “Bigger is better” is the apposite maxim. From a complex systems perspective however, a very different picture is evident. In the ecological domain, sustainable ecosystems have been quantitatively shown to be those which maintain an appropriate (context, time and space dependent) dynamic balance between opposing tendencies of ascendancy and efficiency on one hand and diversity and redundancy on the other (Ulanowicz, 2009; Goerner et al., 2009). Ecological biodiversity is an absolute requirement for ecosystem endurance since it facilitates system resilience in the event of significant perturbation (whether sudden shock or longer term stress). For example, a species which can feed on a selection of available prey species is more resilient against partial ecosystem destruction/prey extinction than one which relies on a single species for food. While the latter scenario represents a situation of greater efficiency, it is also more rigid and less resilient. Moreover, while the tendencies of complex systems towards ascendancy (organisation, efficiency) and disorder (redundancy, diversity) are antagonistic at local levels, they are in fact mutually dependent at higher levels (Ulanowicz et al, 2009): “A requisite for the increase in effective orderly performance (ascendency) is the existence of flexibility (reserve) within the system. Conversely, systems that are highly constrained and at peak performance (in the second law sense of the word) dissipate external gradients at ever higher gross rates”. This model has been mirrored across techno-economic and social domains wherein similar sustainability models have been proposed (e.g. Stirling, 2011). This framework has manifested itself in research outputs across virtually every discipline, where in different guises sustainable and persistent systems have been shown to require a balance between tendencies of control, structure and organisation and those of diversity and disorder.

Following its mission and vision, eScience Center develops research software in collaboration with researchers. Availability of research software is the crucial first step, but uptake by the research community is required to make it alive and sustainable. An efficient way to facilitate the uptake is to bring together the developers and potential users through hands-on training workshops, which allow researchers to learn the software directly from its developers. Likewise, the developers can get direct feedback from the domain experts, which can help them to improve their software. This project aims such a workshop series on environment and sustainability-related eScience Center research software for the researchers of the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), which is a world-renown education and research institution in the field. Besides enabling the growth of the user communities by involving highly skilled researchers, the events will also support better collaboration between the institutions. This proposal is funded by the Netherlands eScience Center's Fellowship Programme 2022-2023.

This reports outlines D8.6 High Impact Communication of the GreenCharge project and covers the main results of the communication activities that were executed during the project. At the beginning of the project, these activities were defined in the D8.1. Communication Strategy and plan. This plan defined quantitative and qualitative targets to assess and measure communication impact. This deliverable explains the results of the targets. This deliverable reports on the impact of GreenCharge’s main communication activities. Focus is on high impact communication and covers website, social media, newsletters and publications, conferences, workshops, lectures to students and animation. As such it gives not only a valuable overview of how GreenCharge results have been communicated, but also presents their impact on interested stakeholders. Evaluation of Communication activities is also reported. The deliverable describes the results of the GreenCharge project, which was shared with the public and the stakeholder groups the consortium. All communication actions were realised with the purpose to achieve these following goals: • Establishing the GreenCharge “Brand” within the EU: It concerns not a brand in the sense of a consumer product, but rather a widely-known “household name” associated with a widely-supported positive goal. The GreenCharge brand could act as a reference for smart charging and Energy Smart Neighbourhoods (ESNs) in the European Union. • Synchronisation with EC Communication Activities: To co-operate actively in events and initiatives organised by the European Commission for promotion of H2020 activities. The goal is to become a highly visible showcase project for H2020. • High public visibility: While GreenCharge addresses specialist and technical audiences, there will also be a major emphasis on addressing policy makers and cities. • Political inspiration by leading examples: GreenCharge aims to provide an easy to reference political example supported by implementing objectives of the EU Transport White Paper and the Urban Mobility Package (SUMP). • Increased reputation of EU funded projects: The aim of the communication strategy is to reach out to society as a whole, while demonstrating how EU funding is used to tackle societal challenges while generating business for (local) entrepreneurs. GreenCharge establishes these goals by publications and seeking media attention. GreenCharge uses several communication channels for reaching out different stakeholder groups, including citizens. This deliverable is of interest to all communication colleagues on the GreenCharge project and to its sister H2020 projects, to demonstrator city and uptake city representatives and to EU and EU agency staff and the wider H2020 EV Charging community. The deliverable helps them to identify impact of the communication activities on interested stakeholders and provide a basis for developing communication activities on other similar projects, but also in other GreenCharge project activities such as the demos and their further exploitation.

The rapid growth of clean technologies to address climate change has emphasized the increasing complexity of materials, some of which face criticality and potential supply disruptions. Inte- grated assessment models (IAMs) used for designing illustrative mitigation pathways (IMPs) lack comprehensive information on material annual demand projection. This study focuses on the demand for the rare earth element neodymium (Nd) until 2050 in wind power and transporta- tion sectors. The assessment is based on the three most ambitious IMPs, namely “Low Energy Demand” (LD), “Sustainability Pathways” (SP), and “Rapid Technology Change” (Ren), from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Assessment Report 6 (AR6). The results show that Nd demand steadily increases in all scenarios, but the magnitude and growth rates vary. The LD scenario exhibits the lowest material needs in passenger transport due to shared road transport and rail preferences, consequence of a focus on final energy use changes, while the SP scenario presents the highest growth in material demand. The Ren scenario, char- acterized by fast electrification and energy intensity improvements, represents a middle-ground scenario for material demand with good opportunities for recycling. This study underscores the significance of considering material demand in scenario design and highlights the importance of better assessing crucial external factors used for material stock determination in the future. The findings contribute to improving scenario design precision and the understanding of material use implications, providing valuable insights for climate policies and resource management strategies.

Today's electrical grid is undergoing deep changes, resulting from the large integration of distributed Renewable Energy Sources (RES) in an effort to decarbonize the generation of electrical energy. In addition to the emergence of this volatile electricity production, the worldwide demand for electricity increases due to a growing population and the intensified electrification of buildings. Smart-buildings represent promising assets for supporting the electrical grid in balancing demand with a supply based on non-dispatchable RES. A smart-building denotes a building equipped with sensor/actuator hardware connected to a federating Building Data Management System (BDMS) which enables high-level applications and services. Tapping into the flexibility inherent to its various entities (load, storage, and generation), a smart-building can provide Demand Response (DR) functionality through the optimization of its energy profile in response to varying electricity prices or commands from the grid.This PhD thesis provides a set of tools, algorithms, and frameworks, revolving around the notion of smart-buildings that foster an enhanced Building-to-Grid (BtG) integration. The tools developed here aim to fill the gap encountered in the literature created by the recent rollout of BDMSs and the ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT). Furthermore, the mismatch between current DR and the future RES-based smart-grid opens the way to the development of innovative algorithms and frameworks to manage the flexibility offered by smart-buildings for grid-side agents. Built upon BDMSs, two open-source tools have been developed. Firstly, an integrated high-speed emulation and simulation software, dubbed Virtualization Engine (vEngine), allows the simulation of non-existing components of a building directly on-site. The multi-threaded, light architecture of vEngine permits efficient simulations, in a modular environment conceived for developers. Secondly, we describe Open Energy Management System (OpenEMS), a platform that seamlessly connects to any existing BDMS and provides its users with an environment to create their own energy management algorithms, with a focus on Model Predictive Control (MPC). Simulations using a realistic Swiss residential building model demonstrate the effectiveness and modularity of both tools. Additionally, we propose a multi-state load profile identification algorithm tailored to Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM). Applied to energy disaggregation, it shows promising results for enhanced energy feedbacks to the occupants. To attain daily energy balance within the smart-grid, we propose several algorithms and energy management frameworks, using smart-buildings. An incremental MPC formulation is derived to better balance monthly costs associated to energy and peak demand of large commercial buildings. Simulations data show substantial benefits, for both the building's owner and the grid. Furthermore, we present a decentralized framework for autonomously managing the energy in a community of smart-buildings, with RES. Based on blockchain technology and smart-contracts, the framework optimizes an objective common to the whole community without the need for a central agent. Finally, we suggest a unified BtG model that could benefit grid-side aggregators in both microgrids and electricity markets.