In view of moving towards a post-petroleum society, the communication of the European Commission on 13 February 2012 entitled "Innovating for Sustainable Growth: A Bioeconomy for Europe", and in particular its Action Plan, aims to integrate better biomass producing and processing sectors in order to reconcile food security, natural resource scarcity and environmental objectives with the use of biomass for industrial and energy purposes. Among others, construction and automotive industries have high potential for effective implementation of the strategy of European Bioeconomy in terms of more efficient use of biomass and industrial by products for development of bio-based value added products. Reinvent project will answer these needs by developing and combining bio based materials and fibres for replacing the petroleum based polyurethane (PUR) insulation products used in buildings and soft foams for vehicles interior products. Polyols, natural cellulose fibres and nanocrystals, and biomass derived nanoparticles (NPs) will be derived by advanced technologies from sustainable wood-based and agro-based sources to develop and validate: i) Novel bio based rigid moulded and spraying insulation foam systems for the construction industry, e.g. composite bridge decks, spraying building insulations and insulating sandwich structures, and ii) Novel bio based soft and semi-rigid foams for the automotive industry, e.g. sub-layers for car ceilings, dashboards and seat covers. These customer products will be validated for their enhanced properties, sustainability and low cost, and compared to currently available petroleum- and bio-based counterparts used in the construction and automotive industries, respectively. To enhance the sustainability of these products and materials, new energy and cost-efficient recycling technologies for the bio-based products will be developed.

The COOL DH project will innovate, demonstrate, evaluate and disseminate technological solutions needed to exploit and utilise sources of very low-grade "waste" heat for heating of energy efficient buildings via Low Temperature District Heating (LTDH) and show how the District Heating (DH) systems can be more resource efficient and more energy efficient. The demonstration covers both new developments and stepwise transition of existing areas with district heating and energy retrofitting of buildings. The COOL DH consortium consists of the utilities and municipalities of the two cities Lund (SE) and Høje-Taastrup (DK) and leading DH energy specialists as well as leading industrial manufacturers. COOL DH will: - Innovate, design and build cooling and heat recovery process systems, enabling heat recovery to a local low-temperature district heating grid. They will mainly be driven by renewables. Design work will start in 2017 and heat recovery will start in 2019. - Design and build a low-temperature district heating grid with non-conventional pipe materials and testing of new innovative pipe components that will become new products introduced as a result of COOL DH. - Innovate and design suitable innovative heating systems and controls inside buildings that combine LTDH with distributed integration of local produced renewable energy on the buildings. Erection of new buildings in Lund will start in 2018 and will continue throughout the time of this project, while LTDH in Høje-Taastrup mainly will be for existing buildings being refurbished including modification of the heating system. - Develop viable business models and new pricing systems, that ensures a good (low) return temperature and provide the building companies with maximum flexibility regarding the choice of heating systems. - Demonstrate a full system with all needed components suitable for ultra-low DH temperatures (40 oC) incl. demonstration of systems for heating of DHW without risk of legionella.