Around 461 million ton/year of C&DW are generated in EU28. Recent studies on the characterization of C&DW samples at European level revealed a predominant fraction of concrete (52% average). Over the last years, novel technology has been developed aiming to guarantee high quality recycled concrete aggregates for use in new concrete, thereby closing the concrete loop. The most advanced concrete recycling technologies currently produce coarse (>4mm) recycled concrete aggregates by removing cement paste from the surface of the aggregates. However, the fine (0-4 mm) fraction, ca. 40% of the concrete waste, still faces technical barriers to be incorporated into new concrete and consequently, is often down-cycled. At the other extreme, there are minor (e.g. glass) and emerging (e.g. mineral wool) C&DW materials, currently accounting for 0.7% of the total, but revealing growing rates as consequence of European regulations. Those emerging C&DW streams have not yet found technological and business solutions, being mostly landfilled. On the other hand, concrete is the most widely used material in building, with a growing trend towards prefabrication. The European precast concrete sector faces diverse needs for resource efficiency improvement (reduction in natural resource consumption and metabolization of waste materials, reduction in carbon footprint and embodied energy, design for reuse, increase in process efficiency and waste minimization, lighter solutions, enhanced thermal performance through novel cost-effective insulating materials). Aiming at facing these challenges, VEEP main objective is to eco-design, develop and demonstrate new cost-effective technological solutions that will lead to novel closed-loop circular approaches for C&DW recycling into novel multilayer precast concrete elements (for both new buildings and refurbishment) incorporating new concretes as well as superinsulation material produced by using at least 75% (by weight) of C&DW recycled materials.

RISKADAPT will provide, in close cooperation with the end-users/other stakeholders, a novel, integrated, modular, interoperable, public and free, customizable user-friendly platform (PRISKADAPT), to support systemic, risk-informed decisions regarding adaptation to CC induced compound events at the asset level, focusing on the structural system. PRISKADAPT will explicitly model dependencies between infrastructures, which, inter alia, will provide a better understanding of the nexus between climate hazards and social vulnerabilities and resilience. Moreover, this project will identify gaps in data and propose ways to overcome them and advance the state of the art of asset level modelling through advanced climate science to predict CC forcing on the structure of interest, structural analyses, customized to the specific structure of interest, that consider all major CC induced load effects in tandem with material deterioration, novel probabilistic environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC) of structural adaptation measures and a new model to assess climate risk that will combine technical risk assessment with assessment of social risks. PRISKADAPT will provide values to a set of indicators for each asset of interest, quantifying primary parameters and impacts, in the form of a Model Information System (MIS) that will provide all required information for adaptation decisions. PRISKADAPT will be implemented in the case studies in the pilots that involve specific assets, however, it will permit customization with local values of parameters and data, so it can be applicable throughout Europe for CC adaptation decisions involving assets of similar function, exposed to multiple climate hazards.

Building sector is responsible for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions in the EU. As nZEB becomes the new standard, the role of building materials and smart envelope systems is becoming more and more important. Exploit4InnoMat OITB will make available a high-end Open Innovation Testbed network for building envelopes including roofs and facades, enabling the replication of prototypes in different buildings taking into consideration the trade-offs between the three sustainability pillars, the life cycle stages as well as their impacts. End-User Market Needs for low-cost, flexible, on demand material-based solutions, which will be assessed through an extensive partnership knowledge on materials characterization and modelling, monitoring and process control, environmental and assessment, regulatory and standardization, social acceptance and innovation management, realizing for nZEB solutions. In order to achieve this target a wide range of expertise has been brought to the OITB covering fields such as Open Innovation Testbeds for nano enabled cement, non cement premixes and ceramics, advanced coatings and glazing solutions loaded with aerogel, fibers, PCMs and other nanomaterials providing multifunctional properties; pilot lines for nanodispersion, 3D printing and roboting spraying; as well as a network of four real scale living laboratories for nZEB technologies evaluation, will facilitate a realization tool for developing close to market technological solutions. Additionally, a semi-automated tool combining BIM analysis, fast track modelling and simulation will make enable a digital tool for utilizing building blocks (structural, solar thermal and BIPV) in order to create a harmonized and aesthetically pleasing urban environment.