SUSTCERT4BIOBASED project is set on fostering the adoption of effective and robust sustainability certification schemes and business-to-business labels for industrial biobased systems to support tracing the sustainability of biobased products along the value chains and trades within the EU and globally for responsible production and consumption. To this end, a monitoring system will be developed with a life-cycle perspective along four themes (environment, social, economic and governance) considering the complexity and relationships of all dimensions of sustainability and the rules and procedures on how the schemes are managed. This system will be optimized with pilot audit in practice and testing on existing schemes/labels for biobased systems evaluating their performance in the different themes and their coverage of the list of minimum requirements. Costs and benefits from the adoption of certification schemes and labels will be assessed, considering actual economic as well as internalized environmental and social ones. Data will be generated on volumes of biological resources and biobased products in global trade flow and extent of their certification. We will leverage the results of the project to provide best practices and recommendations to 4 key target groups: policy makers, sustainability system community, industrial biobased value chain actors, and regional/rural bioeconomy stakeholders. Our vision is that this will result in harmonized system requirements, continuous improvement and enhanced adoption of sustainability certification schemes and labels, and provide a significant contribution towards establishing a circular and sustainable bio-based industry for Europe contributing to the Bioeconomy Strategy and Green Deal. The large multi-sectorial stakeholders involvement (through an international Network of Interest domain and a comprehensive Advisory Board) will enable SUSTCERT4BIOBASED to increase outreach and aligning with ongoing international efforts.

The “Blue Acid/Base Battery” (BAoBaB), stores electrical energy using pH and salinity differences in water. The principle of BAoBaB is altering the acid-base balance by means of an excess of available electricity to obtain an acid and base from its corresponding salt solution. When electricity is needed, acid and base are recombined into their corresponding salt solution again while obtaining electrical work from the entropy and enthalpy gain. Our goal is to develop this totally new, environment-friendly, cost-competitive, scalable, water-based electrical energy storage system from TRL3 to TRL5. Our objectives are: 1. to establish and extend the potential of BAoBaB to become a reliable and environmentally friendly way of storing (renewable) electricity at kWh-MWh scale for application at user premises or at substation level. 2. to understand and enhance mass transfer in round-trip conversion techniques and hence to improve the energy conversion efficiencies of the BAoBaB system, aiming an efficiency >80% and >10 times higher energy density than in Pumped Hydropower Storage. 3. to validate under accepted utility use conditions an automatically operated BAoBaB system (with corresponding battery management) at a scale of 1 kW power and 7 kWh energy storage. 4. To pave the road for cost competitive energy storage with attention to life-cycle cost and performance, aiming at <0.05 €/kWh/cycle. BAoBaB operates at a timescale of hours to days, and hence will enable a larger penetration degree of distributed and intermittent renewable energy sources. Not only the storage capacities are huge (kWh to MWh), resources are plentiful (salt and water) and environmental risks are minimal. Together with the location independence and non-toxic nature, penetration rate can be high within the EU and outside, providing the EU export opportunities.

Bioenergy is the main source of renewable energy today and it is expected to continue playing a key role in the decarbonisation of the European energy and transport sectors, a prerequisite to achieve the long-term targets of the EU, the Paris Agreement and sustainable development goals. The Implementation Plan of Action 8, Bioenergy and Renewable Fuels for Sustainable Transport (IP8) set detailed targets for the development, demonstration and scale-up of the sector. In order to achieve a step-change, six complementary stakeholders engaged in bioenergy and renewable fuels, joined forces to enable successful implementation within SET4BIO. The overall objective of SET4BIO is to support the full execution of the IP8, i.e. both for research and innovation lines and large-scale projects, acting as competence centre and complementary resource for the Implementation Working Group (IWG8). Industry, academia, institutes, EU Member States and Associated Countries as well as the European Institutions and functions play a key role for successful implementation of IP8. SET4BIO will propose solutions and pathways to overcome essential barriers identified in the IP8 and will engage and coordinate key stakeholders through a participatory approach. The project will identify and promote best practices for development, demonstration and scale-up through a competition-based innovation approach, monitor development, develop a financing roadmap as well as provide policy recommendations and disseminate results. A wide-ranging network must strive towards the same goal and SET4BIO will facilitate the coordination. Several beneficiaries are involved in the IWG8 set up by the European Commission. Commitment and understanding of SET-Plan ambitions on Industry and Member State/Associated Country level will be crucial to the successful implementation. SET4BIO will take an active role in supporting IWG8 and be a catalyst to facilitate the implementation of the actions which are set out in the IP8.