The main objective of the BECOOL (EU) and BioVALUE (Brazil) projects is to strengthen EU-Brazil cooperation on advanced lignocellulosic biofuels. Information alignment, knowledge synchronization, and synergistic activities on lignocellulosic biomass production logistics and conversion technologies are key targets of both projects and will bring mutual benefits. Both projects are structured in 3 main pillars covering in a balanced way the whole range of activities of the biofuels value chain (biomass production, logistics, conversion and exploitation). The BECOOL consortium is composed by 14 partners from universities, research institutes, large industries/SMEs, from 7 EU countries. Together with improved logistics, the establishment of the BECOOL innovative cropping systems will enable to increase biomass feedstock availability by at least 50% without negatively impacting food production, soil quality, and customary land uses. The improvements in gasification process efficiency of new feedstocks will allow to achieve an optimal gas quality from non-conventional sources (e.g. lignocellulosic crops and residues). The use of energy carrier in gasification will allow to overcome a major logistics barriers for low-energy density feedstock, while the valorization of lignin-rich residues will dramatically improve the energy efficiency of the overall value chain. Technological breakthroughs on pre-treatment, hydrolysis and enzymatic saccharification and fermentation steps will increase the competitiveness of biochemical advanced ethanol. The cross-project model benchmarking, carried out between EU and Brazil, will decrease present limitations on growth, logistics and process academic models, making them more reliable, opening opportunities for business, new jobs, reduced land pressure, and enhanced environmental benefits in EU and Brazil.

CARINA is built on a multi-actor consortium and participative decision-making process through mutual learning, transparent communication, and inclusive multi-perspectives and transdisciplinary engagement. From the proposal clearly emerges the importance of social innovation as the nerve center for the evolution of the whole project. Nine Lighthouses, 5 Living Labs, and 9 Policy Innovation Labs will be established across Europe playing a leading role in the co-creation of CARINA innovation actions. CARINA focuses on new sustainable and diversified farming systems including 2 new oilseed crops, carinata and camelina, able to provide multiple low iLUC feedstocks for the bio-based economy. We firmly believe that a participatory approach is necessary for successfully scaling-up innovative farming systems. Engaging farmers and other stakeholders in jointly developing solutions under specific environmental, technical, and social conditions has been highly considered in CARINA. We estimate about 3M farmers being potentially reached by CARINA thanks to the direct cooperation with its partners. To find a broad consensus by primary producers, a new crop should enable to promote and harness biodiversity, be easy-to-grow, and technically feasible within current cropping systems. Carinata and camelina fully meet these requirements, able to successfully grow almost everywhere in Europe and in northern Africa. Carinata and camelina provide high quality oils that will be transformed into innovative bio-based products (bioherbicides, bioplastics). The co-product from oil extraction is a protein-rich cake, which will be valorized as animal feed, and in a multitude of high added-value products, exploiting the mucilage and glucosinolates contained within. CARINA capitalizes on a highly experienced team of 20 partners, +6 affiliated entities, from 13 EU and Associated Countries (Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Greece, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, UK, Serbia, Tunisia, Morocco, Switzerland).

REGATRACE (REnewable GAs TRAde Centre in Europe) aims creating an efficient trade system based on issuing and trading biomethane/renewable gases Guarantees of Origin (GoO). This will strongly contribute to the uptake of the European common biomethane market. This objective will be achieved through the founding pillars: - European biomethane/renewable gases GoO system - Set-up of national GoO issuing bodies - Integration of GoO from different renewable gas technologies with electric and hydrogen GoO systems - Integrated assessment and sustainable feedstock mobilisation strategies and technology synergies - Support for biomethane market uptake - Transferability of results beyond the project’s countries. REGATRACE relates, within the H2020 Work Program 2018-2020 on Secure, clean and efficient energy, to the Call BUILDING A LOW-CARBON, CLIMATE RESILIENT FUTURE: SECURE, CLEAN and EFFICIENT ENERGY, with topic LC-SC3-RES-28-2018-2019-2020: Market Uptake support and to the specific issue: Development of cost-effective logistics, feedstock mobilisation strategies and trade-centres for intermediate bioenergy carriers. The intermediate bioenergy carrier is biomethane, a Europe-wide trade centre for biomethane and other renewable gases is necessary for enabling investments to supply the whole European market and for promoting cross-border biomethane trade. REGATRACE supports the mobilisation of biogas feedstocks, which otherwise would not be utilised. Efficient bioenergy logistics refers to biomass conversion and use of the gas grid as the logistic tool. A stable, reliable and common market for biomethane and other renewable gases in Europe plays an important role to achieve EU political targets and to decouple the energy systems from fossil fuels: biomethane/renewable gases can be produced from waste or residual streams of organic material and they can be transmitted and stored in existing infrastructures, so allowing to combine the European natural gas and electricity grids.

Successfully scaling up the sustainable and biodegradable materials is essential for the future growth of European industry. To compete with well-established fossil-based chemicals, biobased alternatives need to solve the triple equation of environmental, safe, economic and societal performance. At the same time it must be economically viable on an industrial scale and possess properties akin or superior to existing petroleum-derived analogues. Few biobased polymers have met this challenge. NEXT-STEP will build on the H2020 BioCatPolymers project to demonstrate a sustainable, safe and economically viable production process for a new chemical platform with large scale applications, notably in the bio-based polymer market. NEXT-STEP will use Harwdood sugars produced from sustainably managed forest at the flagship plant of the project partner Fibenol. NEXT-STEP has defined ambitious KPIs for its process regarding its economic performances as well as its Biomass and Energy efficiency. The new chemical platform, the 3-methyl-d-valerolactone (3MdVL) will improve the sustainability and recyclability of polyurethane (PU) products and unlock new engineering plastic applications for Polylactic acid (PLA) co-polymers. Together with its derivate 3-methyl 1,5-pentanediol (3MPD), the 3MdvL can also be used as a biobased polyol component in the traditional PU and other plastic production processes. NEXT-STEP will demonstrate the applicability of its chemical platform by demonstrating its use as a feedstock for the production of (i) Polylactic acid (PLA) co-polymers for shoe outsole, and of (ii) recyclable Non Isocyanate Polyurethane foams for shoe mid-sole and insulation materials applications. Five other applications will be selected for demonstration together with the polymer industry during the project.