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First STAR-ProBio Focus Group Webinar

STAR-ProBio’s first Focus Group Webinar on Sustainability Assessment Factors for Bio-Based Products took place on January 29, 2018.

The discussion was moderated by Luana Ladu (TU Berlin) and comprised experts with a EU perspective and representatives from various stakeholder groups from Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain and The Netherlands.

Five questions built the foundation for the discussions:

  • Which sustainability parameters/criteria should be considered by a sustainability assessment scheme for bio-based products?
  • Which factors should be mandatory in such a scheme and which ones should be voluntary?
  • Are particular parameters/criteria needed to assess specific bio-based products/product groups?
  • How should the compliance of these parameters be communicated to consumers?
  • Which particular needs regarding sustainability assessment parameters/criteria does your specific stakeholder group have?

The key conclusions of the event were summarized as follows:

1 Fossil-based products should be subject to the same sustainability criteria as bio-based products.

2 The only main difference for bio-based products is that the raw material is biomass. Therefore additional criteria regarding the production of biomass could/should be added.

3 Sustainability criteria for biomass for bio-based products should/could be similar to those applying to biomass for energy applications where binding criteria exist.

4 Regarding whether there should be a minimum percentage of bio-based content, different influencing factors have to be considered; in particular technology issues and consumers’ expectations.

5 Environmental criteria are more obvious than social and economic criteria.

6 The origin of biomass is also of importance (as shown by the bioenergy discussion).

7 Criteria that were explicitly referred to included: GHG emissions, bio-based content, and health-related aspects.

The results will enrich the current sources for the preparation of a Delphi survey and also support various other current project activities.

More Focus Group activities on specific stakeholder- and product-related topics will take place within the duration of the project.

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STAR-ProBio @BBI JU Stakeholder Forum 2017, Bruxelles

Piergiuseppe Morone (Unitelma Sapienza), Francesca Govoni (Unitelma Sapienza) and Sergio Ugarte (SQ Consult) will attend the BBI JU Stakeholder Forum 2017 (6-7 December 2017 – Bruxelles) and present STAR-ProBio project.

The event will include plenary keynote speeches and high-level discussions with expert panels and facilitate discussions on the strategic direction for the BBI JU programme through constructive and open dialogue with stakeholders by encouraging cross-collaboration between them.

More information, details of speakers and the agenda are all available on the registration website
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1st Meeting of the General Assembly, Rome – 19-20/10/2017

The 1st Meeting of the General Assembly took place last week at Unitelma Sapienza University of Rome (Viale Regina Elena, 295 – 00161 Rome). The first day of the meeting was reserved exclusively for partners (WPs Parallel Meetings were scheduled on this day) while the second day saw the participation of the Project Officer and External Advisory Board members.

  

It was a very productive meeting and we are looking forward to future developments of the project!

 

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1st internal workshop “Principles, criteria and indicators for sustainability transition assessment to circular and bio-based economy”

On 15 September 2017 at the campus of the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn it was held the 1st internal workshop entitled “Principles, criteria and indicators for sustainability transition assessment to circular and bio-based economy”.

This workshop was associated directly with realization of STAR-ProBio project (H2020). The goal of the workshop was to discuss the general framework for effective and harmonized regulations in creation of market pull for bio-based products.

During the workshop it was presented initial results of ongoing research by interdisciplinary research teams representing scientific disciplines of agriculture, environment management, economics and law.

The event attracted 14 participants and the basis for discussion was 10 presentations. The final conclusion from this workshop seems to be unambiguous – interdisciplinary research approach with a multilayer thorough analysis of technical, economic, environmental and social aspects will be crucial for development of market regulations for bio-based products.

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Coordinators Day, Brussels, 22 June 2017

On 22 June, Luana Ladu (TUB) and Francesca Govoni (Unitelma Sapienza) attended the Horizon2020 Coordinators day in Brussels, in order to learn more about Project life cycle, Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation of results and to get a chance to present STAR-ProBio to officers of the European Commission as well as coordinators of other similar projects. This was also a great opportunity to liaise with other projects with overlapping interests.

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Kick-off Meeting

We are glad to announce that STAR-ProBio started!

The Kick-off Meeting of the project was held the 18-19 May in Berlin, at the Technische Universität Berlin.

The event was an important opportunity for all partners of the Consortium, coordinated by Unitelma Sapienza, to know each other personally and discuss about objectives, goals, tasks and deliverables to be produced in the 36 months of this challenging project!