BIOTRAILS aims to generate knowledge and develop tools that will inspire and accelerate biodiversity-relevant transformative change in our society. BIOTRAILS will use Participatory Systems Dynamics Modelling to take into account the complex interrelations between the indirect drivers of change in four value chains of traded products (cocoa produced in Peru; forest-based cultural products created by indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon; fisheries and aquaculture products supplied by the Mediterranean basin and consumed within the Mediterranean countries; and gold mined in Ghana), and in an integrated manner alongside the climate and social justice agendas. Based on this knowledge and tools, BIOTRAILS will bring together stakeholders across different stages of product/material global value chains to collaboratively design pathways that can lead to a sustainable future, proposing interventions in policy, urban consumption patterns and corporate policies. BIOTRAILS will set up Learning and Action Alliances: groups of organisations and individuals with a common interest to address the multiple challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and peoples good quality of life, across different spatial and administrative scales and stages of global value chains. Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional InputOutput analysis and Life Cycle Assessment methods will be used to trace the environmental pressures arising from extraction / production, trade, and consumption activities, and behaviour patterns along global supply chains in the target sectors. The project will assess, besides the economic values, the biophysical, social and relational values emerging across different steps of value chain. Behavioural studies will be conducted based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour, which considers psychological and behavioural patterns. Structural Equation Models will be used to identify the most significant factors that drive behavioural change.

The RUSTICA projects provides a technical solution to convert organic residues from the fruit and vegetable sector into novel bio-based fertiliser products of high quality that address the needs of modern (organic) agriculture. The project’s ambition goes beyond the simple recovery of nutrients, and also includes the developments of economically viable and environmentally sustainable alternatives to mineral fertilisers with the same or improved agronomic value. The technical solution consists of 5 conversion processes (carboxylic acid platform, microbial biomass production, electrodialysis, insect breeding and biochar production) which can be combined depending on the available waste streams, and integrated with state-of-the-art technologies such as composting. Synergies between the individual conversion processes will be sought and optimized to maximize economic and environmental benefits, and the processes will be demonstrated at TRL7. The resulting ingredients (microbial biomass, mineral nutrient concentrates, insect biomass, insect frass, insect chitin, biochar) will be combined to obtain tailor made fertiliser products adapted to specific crop needs. Parallel with this technological innovation and integration, a multi-actor approach guarantees the implementation potential of the technologies in the agro-food chain, and will lead to sound business models. Several non-technical aspects (environmental and social LCA, legal framework, expected market developments...) will be evaluated in 4 European regions and 1 region in Colombia. Stakeholder involvement at each step guarantees the development of marketable end-products for the fruit and vegetable sector, with a high replication potential to other agricultural sectors. Cooperation with other EUfunded projects working on nutrient recovery from other waste products will stimulate a joint solution to evolve towards a sustainable and circular fertiliser management to close nutrient cycles within and between regions