Existing heavily industrialized areas are currently incapable of adopting large-scale industrial symbioses in terms of shared technology/infrastructure use, waste integration, energy and material utilization, as well as expanding through surrounding ecosystems in an inclusive manner for the society despite many of the EU's key strategic priorities in sustainable regional development. Within this context, IS2H4C proposes an ambitious and efficient innovation and action workplan to develop several solutions for the development of Hubs for Circularity (H4C) in diverse industrial areas of process industry surrounded by rural and/or urban settings in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Turkey. The workplan is shaped by development and deployment of most innovative sustainable technologies and infrastructure integration in four demo hubs and is supported by ground-breaking research on societal, governmental, and business innovation for H4C. IS2H4C scales up industrial areas to H4C via implementing systemic change and integrating the surrounding ecosystems to industrial areas. The project implements a digital collaboration platform to manage the resource, infrastructure and information-sharing within H4C via embedding of decision-support modules in the platform. IS2H4C has the ambition of reducing the energy use, waste emissions, and carbon emissions by at least 10%, 20%, and 30% respectively. IS2H4C will contribute to pave the path towards the development of H4C based on the circularity and resilience requirements of existing and future industrial zones and their surrounding ecosystems by prioritizing resource efficiency, maximizing use of renewable energy, prevention of waste, and promoting industrial/urban/rural symbiosis via reuse and recycling of unavoidable solid, liquid, and gas waste streams. All in all, IS2H4C’s biggest ambition is to promote H4C as Europe’s future sustainable regional development models.

The DigiFab consortium will develop a renovation process consisting of: 1) Digital process chain with detailed assessment and co-creation methodology to cover the entire renovation workflow; 2) Choice of adaptable prefabricated modules with passive and active technologies to achieve near zero energy building (NZEB) levels and reduced environmental impact; 3) Assessment and monitoring software with building information modelling (BIM) to automate the process. Estimated installation time is 2 days per unit of 200m2 surface, with 30% less cost than conventional renovation. Our solution transforms the renovation process by digitizing it from design brief to finalization. The approach, not widely adopted in the sector, offers significant cost and time reduction by accurately collecting and centralizing data at all stages, minimizing uncertainties that cause delays and increase costs. Co-creation with occupants gathers expectations and best renovation times. Building data is collected with accurate methods, transformed into a high-quality digital twin that automates energy and structural analysis, leading to design optimization with the best technology combinations according to project inputs. Results from the analysis are used directly to manufacture the prefabricated modules using modern methods of construction (MMC) and “just in time” (JIT). The modules use novel lightweight concrete mixes with recycled materials, bio-based materials, active envelope heating technologies, energy generation and management including ventilation. Installation follows specific site conditions, monitored through procedures such as laser scanning. A worksite solution is used to manage and monitor levels of construction demolition waste, and noise. At the end of the commissioning process, energy performance documentation is provided. Three demonstration sites in Spain, Austria and Greece with diverse building typologies will showcase how the DigiFab solution benefits stakeholders.