Modern industrial companies aim to extend their products with services as fundamental value-added activities. The key potential of the concept of Product Service System (PSS), besides radical improvements in the use of products, is a reduction of environmental footprint of products and services. The overall footprint of PSS is still insufficiently investigated. The services within PSS are an important, insufficiently used source of (digitalized) data on the product and its use. It is likely that digital means facilitating provision of consistent “track and trace” information on the origin, composition and entire life cycle not only of a product but of all services offered and used around the product, will offer important contribution towards achievement of full circularity for manufacturing. The key idea of PSS-Pass is to investigate how extension of DPP to Digital Product Service System Passport (DPSSP) can be effectively achieved and how it will allow for improved circularity of the manufacturing industry. The overarching hypothesis is that LCA underpinned by Machine Learning (ML) methods and informed by dynamic data paves the way to more accurate LCA while supporting PSS life cycle decision making. The collected and sharable data from DPSSP will allow to effectively apply ML as well as Digital Twin (DT) for more reliable decision-making processes concerning circularity of PSS. The project will provide Methodological Framework for definition, development and update of DPSSP, Digital Environment for DPSSP built on existing interoperability architectures, set of ontologies for improved interoperability at DPSSP Environment, novel DT-based Simulation Framework, for modelling standardized and interoperable DTs for PSS lifecycle analysis, and AI based method/tool to forecasts the environmental impact of PSS. The PSS-Pass solutions will be tested and evaluated within 3 pilots in diverse sectors: home appliances, complex equipment, and textile industry.

THyGA main goal is to enable the wide adoption of hydrogen and natural gas (H2/NG) blends by closing knowledge gaps regarding technical impacts on residential and commercial gas appliances. For this purpose, THyGA will: •Screen the portfolio of technologies in the domestic and commercial sectors and assess theoretically the impact of hydrogen / natural gas admixture in order to have a quantitative segmentation of the gas appliance market and a selection of the most adequate products to be tested •Test up to 100 residential and commercial gas appliances (hobs, boilers, CHP, Heat pumps, etc.) and how 200 Million of European gas appliances will react to various H2 concentration scenarios •Benchmark and develop pre-certification protocols (test gases) for different level of H2 in natural gas for coming integration in standardization, these protocols will be validated through tests •Make recommendations for manufacturers, decision makers and end-users along the gas value chain to enable mitigation strategies for retrofit THyGA will provide an extensive understanding of previous projects or studies related to H2NG admixture utilization with domestic and commercial appliances. Through extensive testing programme, the project will establish the impact of hydrogen concentration in natural gas on safety and performances of a large set of domestic and commercial appliances. Hence, THyGA will support recommendations for revising EN or ISO standards or drafting new standards and will fully support and secure FCH-JU’s “Hydrogen Roadmap Europe” (2019). THyGA project gathers 9 renowned partners including 4 research centres, 3 industries, 1 SME, and 1 association covering the whole value chain of natural gas. The extensive advisory panel includes manufacturers, European and International Associations and DSOs included in H2/NG blends projects ensuring a constant challenge of the processed results and a great opportunity for a wide dissemination/communication plan to share results.

CIRCULAR FOAM aims at the demonstration of a territorial cross-sectorial systemic solution for the circularity of high performance plastics from diverse applications on the example of rigid polyurethane foams used as insulation in refrigerators and in construction. The waste streams will be upcycled chemically, which means that they will be valorised to become new virgin-equivalent feedstock for the chemical industry to produce new high performance plastics. In this way, it will become possible to replace limited fossil-based resources by the renewable waste-based ones, thus not only reducing waste, but also becoming more sustainable and making a step forward to climate neutrality. The project and the demonstration are targeting a concrete implementation of the solution in question in the selected regions after the project and developing a blueprint for both the geographical transferability to other regions and for the technological extension of the circularity principle to a number of further waste materials from further applications. We consider here two carefully selected regions: NRW/Germany, Silesia/PL and Greater Amstedam Region. The consortium is composed of all actors required to close the circular value chain (process industries, manufacturing, waste management, technology providers, incl. also research partners, logistics, social scientists and economist working with with public sector and citizens. After practical implementation and replication in EU of the systemic solution, following reductions will have been attained by 2040: 586.000 tons per year less waste, 18,6 mln. tons less CO2 emission; 118 mln EUR less cost for incineration for the PU producers. The system will signifficantly contribute to resilience in regions.