Europe is at a time of upheaval in its history, when climate change and the availability of resources is threatening the future of the European economy and of the rest of the world, at a time that we are striving to recover from the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Europe has decided to address these challenges by committing to the Green Deal in order to transform our society and turn the EU in a modern, resource-efficient, competitive and fair economy.
This decisive commitment is leading to the deployment of numerous market, legislative and regulatory initiatives with a specific timeline for action. It seeks to rise to the scale of the challenge that we have to face and which many have dubbed a real "transformative tsunami".
The first day of the congress will focus on the main advances in the subject, which will be discussed with the leading Basque economic stakeholders.
9.15AM - 10.00AM
Accreditation
9.15AM - 10.00AM
10.00am - 10.15am
INSTITUTIONAL OPENING
10.00am - 10.15am
Arantxa Tapia, Minister for Economic Development Sustainability and the Environment. Basque Government.
10.15am -10.45am
Recent Developments in the EU Circular Economy Policy
ROUND TABLE 1. TRANSPARENCY AND POSITIONING: A new market standard
12.10pm -1.00pm
Information on environmental performance and its communication to investor and customers are of growing importance for companies, arising both from the different statutory obligations regarding the Green Deal and from the demand for greater environment transparency and commitment by the market voluntary initiatives.
Accordingly, special mention should be made of the Green Claims legislative proposal that seeks to substantiate those claims through the product or organisation environmental footprint, or the obligation to calculate and report the carbon footprint envisaged in the Spanish Climate Change and Energy Transition Act.
Environmental transparency also plays a key role in improving the positioning of the companies in the different supplier assessment schemes (such as EcoVadis and NQC) used by the leading multinationals in their procurement processes, as well as for the assessment by reputation indexes, such as the Carbon Disclosure Project, as well as being essential for private and public green procurement processes (Environmental Product Declarations).
Companies will have to obtain the necessary data from throughout their value chain, acting as trailblazers in order to comply with market and statutory requirements regarding environmental transparency. Embarking on this path is key to remain on the market, particularly for SMEs.
ROUND TABLE 2. ECODESIGN FOR A CIRCULAR ECONOMY: From durability to the digital passport
1.0pm - 1.50pm
Designing products and services from a lifecycle approach is essential to drive the circularity of the economy. That is set out of the European sustainable product initiative, one of the environmental legislative drivers that is expected to have the greatest impact on companies.
Special mention should be made of the introduction of the digital product passport, which will contain all the information needed to facilitate the repair, reuse and recycling of the product/service, along with the information on its environmental impact throughout its life cycle.
Furthermore, the review of the Ecodesign Directive includes some significant changes, such as its extension to products not related to energy and the incorporation of criteria to improve the circularity of products, such as durability, reparability, remanufacturing, recyclability or recycled material content, which are set out in the Proposal for Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation.
ROUND TABLE 3. RAW MATERIALS: IMPROVING SECURITY OF SUPPLY THROUGH CIRCULARITY
3.30pm - 4.20pm
The circular economy, given its emphasis to reducing the consumption of raw materials, is helping to ease the current supply crisis and its negative impact on companies' productivity, and lessen the risk of shortages and dependency on imports.
Advances that will allow the supply of substitutes for critical raw materials to be guaranteed and the improvement to the recovery of secondary raw materials, particularly sourced locally, will be crucial to reduce dependency on third parties. The major challenges include the need to develop instruments and standards that ensure the quality of the secondary raw materials.
The main driving force for change is an increasingly less restrictive legislative framework, along with the market drivers. Special mention should be made of the tax on incineration or depositing waste in landfill envisaged in the Spanish Legislation on Waste and Contaminated Soil for a Circular Economy, along with specific initiatives for the Basque Country, and the fee for extracting aggregates and the emphasis on encouraging the use of secondary materials in the 2030 Basque Waste Prevention and Management Plan.
These measures will be a clear incentive to reduce the operations ending up in landfill and to increase the circularity of the materials, by means of better separation, new recovery techniques, use of by-products, establishing commercial relations to find a way on to the market, etc. The recovery of critical raw materials or with high value applications will be fundamental.
Expert speaker: Ion Olaeta, Managing Director of Grupo Otua and President of FER, Vice president of EPRB and Deputy Director of EuRIC
ROUND TABLE 4. SUSTAINABLE FINANCES: The cornerstone of the change towards a new economy
4.20pm - 5.10pm
Sustainable investments are put forward as motors for change thanks to instruments such as the European green bonds to obtain capital in projects with environmentally sustainable goals, along with the Taxonomy Regulation, which establishes the criteria to determine whether an activity is considered environmentally sustainable, to channel the capital flows towards those sustainable investments, thus converting financial institutions into drivers of sustainability.
That implies companies assessing their contribution to environmental goals, mandatory reporting of environmental information and focusing financing on green activities.
In turn, financial institutions will have to integrate the Taxonomy Regulation criteria when assessing their financial investments and products.
ROUND TABLE 5. DECARBONISATION: Climate neutral in the value chain
5.10pm - 6.00pm
The European Climate Act establishes the obligation to be committed to be climate neutral by 2050, the ultimate goal of the European Green Deal.
In the same vein, the Spanish Climate Change and Energy Transition Act has been passed and the future Basque legislation is in the pipeline. The Basque Act will establish the legal framework to be climate neutral in the emission of greenhouse gases by 2050 and to progress towards a territory more resilient to climate, while harnessing the necessary technological development to drive Basque industry.
Furthermore, the Directive's proposal regarding companies' sustainability due diligence establishes harmonised obligations for companies operating in the European Union, applicable to their whole chain supply, to identify and minimise their impacts on the environment, with special focus on combatting climate change.
The carbon footprint is a measuring and reporting instrument, which allows companies to set goals and improvement actions to advance in the decarbonisation of their activities. Companies need to adopt circular economy strategies with a life cycle approach in order to achieve that decarbonisation and to drive the whole value chain to comply with their climate goals.
Visit to the “Zirkularrak-Circular” Exhibition of circular products manufactured in the Basque Country
6.00pm
Informal cocktail within the framework of the exhibition of circular products
With the collaboration
CIRCULARITY IN THE VALUE CHAINS: BEST ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICES
The Circular Economy challenge involves applying an integrating approach that brings together the whole value chain involved in the life cycle of the activities, products and services developed for the market. And if we talk about value chains, we have to talk about SMEs.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are vital for the EU economy, as they account for 99% of European companies and two thirds of jobs in the private sector. And making SMEs more competitive is one of the priority goals of the European Green Deal.
This second day of the summit will focus on analysing the implications, challenges and opportunities for Basque SMEs that the circular economy already offers in the main value chain. Success stories will be directly presented by the people involved.
Circular Economy in Latin America and the Caribbean
11.00AM - 11.05AM
Vanessa Esslinger, coordinator of the Regional Circular Economy Coalition for Latin America and the Caribbean. UNEP - PNUMA
11.05am -11.30am
COFFEE BREAK
11.05am -11.30am
SECTORAL parallel sessions
11.30am - 1.00pm
SP 1
11.30am - 1.00pm
1A - ROOM 1. METAL
The metal sector is primarily facing two major environmental challenges, namely, to increase the circularity of the materials and their quality, and, fundamentally, decarbonisation.
As part of the review of the Industrial Emissions Directive, the best available techniques will be considered to contribute to the European goals regarding climate, energy and the circular economy. Conversely, steel, iron and aluminium produced outside the EU and imported to the EU will become subject to the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and will no longer receive free emission allowances. This will balance the market and optimise decarbonisation efforts.
This sector's main customers, which include the automotive and construction industries, are signing up to voluntary initiatives and alliances to become climate neutral earlier than required. Decarbonised production technologies will need to be developed and applied to face those challenges, along with systematising and standardising the collection and processing of the information needed to meet market demands regarding environmental transparency.
Conversely, given that it is foreseeable that the demand for secondary material by the customers is increasing, the metal sector will be forced to identify opportunities to recover metals and reintroduce them in the value chain, ensuring the traceability of the secondary raw materials.
11.30AM - 11.45AM Priority challenges for the sector
The machinery and equipment sector will also be affected by the challenge of overcoming the raw material supply problems, but it must fundamentally respond to the need to increase value retention and to extend the life cycle of their products. Incorporating corrective but fundamentally predictive maintenance services and the different strategies to facilitate the repair, reconditioning and remanufacturing the equipment, are particularly important in this sector.
Furthermore, companies must comply with the new legislative requirements regarding product Ecodesign, by defining and integrating sustainability and circularity criteria and using the results of the environmental assessments to detect areas of improvement.
Additionally, the machinery and equipment sector will also be greatly influenced by the environmental legislative framework affecting its customers (such as the automotive sector and other productive industries) and its suppliers (e.g., the metal sector). The new environmental transparency obligations stand out, along with the obligation to provide true and harmonised environmental information through the environmental footprint. Many of those customers are also signing up to voluntary decarbonisation commitments that involve the whole value chain. Those market drivers will require the gathering and processing of environmental information to be systematised and the environmental performance of the organisation and of its products to be communicated.
11.30AM - 11.45AM Priority challenges for the sector and support services
Under the future Prevention of Food Loss and Waste Act, the food chain stakeholders will have to have a prevention plan, report losses and transform unsold food. Food will therefore need to be assessed and quantified using a proven methodology, to be able to establish improvements. Thus, a crucial legislative instrument in combatting food waste will be the new labelling criteria regarding the "Use-By" and "Best Before" date.
Progressing in the circularity of the food sector will require optimising the use of resources with a life cycle perspective and advancing in the reuse and recovery of by-products and waste, by developing new upgrading processes and applying bio-economy strategies.
Food sector companies will also have to be aware of the review of the Industrial Emissions Directive, as it envisages the extension of the scope of application of the directive to new sectors, such as livestock and mixed farms.
As regards packaging, the legislation calls for Extended Producer Responsibility to be established regarding industrial and commercial packaging, the defining of minimum requirements for recycled material with a tax based on the amount of virgin plastic and new recycling targets for packaging waste. Furthermore, eco-modular fees will be established for managing packaging waste.
11.30AM - 11.45AM Priority challenges for the sector and support services
Due to its high impact and wide scope for improvement, this sector is a priority in the various circular economy policies and strategies. This is demonstrated by all the actions and initiatives to develop more circular products and materials, such as reviewing the Construction Products Regulation to include circularity and environmental assessment criteria, or incorporating steel and cement into the new Ecodesign Directive.
In this context, the sector also has to comply with new legal requirements on CDW related to mandatory selective demolition, limitations on landfill and aggregate extraction, and new requirements on secondary materials in public works. To meet these requirements, actors in the sector should identify opportunities for using secondary raw materials and systematising their inclusion in construction products and projects, while identifying and developing specialised recovery processes for CDW and quality standards for recovered materials.
Another important challenge will also involve meeting the growing demand for environmental transparency throughout the entire value chain, driven by the Digital Books, the voluntary Building Renovation Passport scheme, and requirements from the Taxonomy Regulation to identify and declare environmentally sustainable activities. As a driver of the sector’s circular transition, they also highlight the criteria for public and private green procurement. To meet these regulatory and market challenges, companies can systematise collection and processing of environmental information and use the different certifications as tools for transparency and positioning.
Some of the most significant changes in the coming years for the automotive sector will be down to decarbonisation, mainly thanks to the impetus to low-carbon fuels and the limitations on the carbon footprint of electric vehicle batteries. Furthermore, the leading companies of the sector are signing up to initiatives and alliances to become carbon neutral (such as Race to Zero and SBTI) and are giving increasingly greater importance to reputation systems such as CDP, as a means of environmental recognition and transparency.
The automotive sector will also be affected by the review of the Ecodesign Directive, as part of the European initiative for sustainable products, as it will affect essential products for the sector, such as steel.
Companies of the automotive sector are also facing the problem of the shortage of raw materials and the obligations regarding minimum content of recycled material for new vehicles, including plastic, steel and aluminium.
This is all pushing towards the adoption of circular economy strategies throughout the value chain, with important ramifications for the companies of the BAC, which will have to adopt solutions to face customers' demands as regards the limitation of their carbon footprint and the introduction of secondary raw material.
1.00PM - 1.15PM Priority challenges for the sector and support services
One of the main challenges for the sector is the supply problem of certain critical materials for electrical and electronic products, which will require those materials to be replaced or recirculation solutions to be sought throughout the value chain.
Furthermore, the proposal for a new Ecodesign Regulation to replace the previous ErP Directive, as part of the Sustainable Products Initiative, establishes new measures for the Ecodesign of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) that includes energy efficiency and circularity (durability, reparability, recyclability …) requirements. In that same vein, the approval of the "right to repair" establishes obligations to guarantee the reparability of the EEE, along with spare parts being available beyond the legal warranty. Furthermore, the EEE Repairability Index announced by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs will provide consumers with the information required to make more responsible decisions and will encourage the repairing of products.
The companies of the electrical and electronic sector are also facing a more restrictive legislative framework to manage the end-of-life of the EEE, such as a ban on destroying unsold surpluses of electrical appliances and the charges and restrictions on landfill and incineration operations.
All this will encourage the assessment and improvement of circularity parameters and a change towards more circular business models, along with repairing and remanufacturing, to comply with market and legal requirement with a focus on improving competitiveness.
1.00PM - 1.15PM Priority challenges for the sector
The habitat sector still functions under a rather linear production and consumption model, given its huge circularity potential. The reuse rate continues to be quite low and managed mainly by social entities, and a high percentage of furniture waste ends up in landfill or incineration. The sector, like so many others, is also facing a shortage of raw materials and the problems throughout the supply chain.
As regards the environmental legislative framework, different legislative initiatives are being developed that will have a great impact on the sector. These include the review of the Ecodesign Directive that will address the presence of harmful chemical substances in furniture, and the obligation to deploy the Extended Producer Responsibility for furniture established in the Spanish Legislation on Waste and Contaminated Soil for a Circular Economy.
Companies will have to work on applying Ecodesign criteria to increase the recycled material content, increase durability and facilitate the recovery of its products in order to improve the sector's circularity. That will be achieved thanks to a modular design and to the use of quality materials with great potential to have a second life. Furthermore, it will be essential to give impetus to circular business models, such as servitization, and the development of an inverse logistics infrastructure. Applying the concepts of the circular bioeconomy is also essential to guarantee sustainable growth.
As regards environmental positioning, companies may pursue the different certifications available to show the sustainability of the products, such as the European eco-label.
1.00PM - 1.15PM Priority challenges for the sector and support services
2D - AUDITORIUM. Construction materials. CONTINUATION OF THE SESSION
2.30pm - 4.00pm
LUNCH
2.30pm - 4.00pm
SECTORAL parallel sessions
4.00pm - 5.30pm
SP 3
4.00pm - 5.30pm
3A - ROOM 1. MOBILITY AND LOGISTICS
The sector's companies will be greatly affected by the new measures aimed at decarbonisation, such as including road and maritime transport in emissions trading, the new tax structure related to the use of fossil fuels (aviation and maritime), and the new goals to reduce emissions that will increase for vehicles in the coming years.
In the same vein, the Spanish Climate Change and Energy Transition Act has established low-emissions areas in cities and towns where only commercial and private vehicles that are 'zero emissions' can enter. This is affecting the fleet of vehicles of logistics and transport companies. Furthermore, the future Sustainable Mobility Act envisages that those companies that provide a passenger or goods transport service will have to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions of that service. The future Basque Act stresses prioritising rail transport and its intermodality with other means of transport and will require the mandatory assessment of the environmental impact of new mobility infrastructures.
The logistics companies will also be affected by the changes in the legislative framework of the packing and packaging sector, such as the Extended Producer Responsibility that will be established for commercial packaging.
Companies will have to opt for low-carbon solutions aimed at the transition towards more sustainable vehicles and adapt to the digitalisation process of the sector and the development of circular supply models in order to address the environmental challenges of the mobility and logistics sector.
4:00PM - 4:15PM Priority challenges for the sector and support services
Second life and material reuse: Ohiane Sanz, Environment manager. Irizar
Alternative refuelling: Alvaro García, head of Electric Mobility North Zone. Repsol
Alternative fuels, biomethane and hydrogen: Roberto González Andrés, head of Mobility Development with Natural Gas and Renewable Gases. Nortegas
5:15PM - 5:30PM Questions and Discussion
3B - ROOM 2. CHEMICAL AND POLYMERS
Particularly important are the measures set out in the European Chemical Strategy for Sustainability and the review of the REACH Regulation, as regards the new requirements to register chemical substances and all the changes aimed at minimising the hazard of chemical substances and their presence in the products marketed in the EU, both to improve the safety of people and the environment, and to allow quality recycling at the end of the useful life of the products, while, in turn, they will require traceability mechanisms to be established for hazardous substances. The review of the Industrial Emissions Directive, as regards the best available techniques and the extension of the established thresholds, and in the inclusion of the new Ecodesign Directive will also have an impact on the sector.
All these measures will drive the development of sustainable and competitive chemical products for an increasingly green market, by means of innovative recovery and industrial processes.
Conversely, the legislative drivers around environmental transparency, such as the possible mandatory requirement for sustainability labelling, the digital product passports and the environmental footprint for the REACH register, will give impetus to the environmental assessment instruments throughout the value chain.
4:00PM - 4:15PM Priority challenges for the sector and support services
The textile industry, as the fourth sector with the greatest environmental impact of the EU and third largest in terms of water use, is facing the challenge of the circular economy driven by more environmentally friendly consumption habits and the new sustainable development proposals in the EU that seeks to replace the European market's textile products by long lasting, recoverable and recyclable items. The EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles is the cornerstone of European policy. Its aim is to ensure that by 2030 the textiles placed on the EU market are long-lived and recyclable, made as much as possible of recycled fibres, free of hazardous substances and produced in respect of social rights and the environment. This strategy lays the foundations to fight against fast fashion and establish economically profitable re-use and repair services.
The review of the Ecodesign Directive also addresses textile products, in order to increase the performance of textile products in terms of durability, reusability, reparability, fibre to fibre recyclability and mandatory recycle fibre content, and to minimise and trace the presence of substances of concern. Furthermore, it aims to introduce a digital product passport for textiles based on mandatory information requirements regarding circularity.
Conversely, the Spanish legislation on Waste and Contaminated Soils for a Circular Economy establishes the Extended Producer Responsibility for textile products with reuse and recycling systems, including the separate collection of textile waste flows, and bans the destruction of unsold surpluses of textile products.
The Basque Country has a solid business ecosystem in environmental matters that represents 5.4% of GDP with a total turnover of 3,138 million euros and high growth potential due to its cross-sectoral approach.
The Basque environmental sector provides the necessary products and services for other value chains to meet the challenges of decarbonisation and air quality, greater efficiency in the use of material resources and water, as well as protection of soil and ecosystems.
The need to increase the amount of secondary material will drive the development of traceability systems and new waste treatment and recovery processes. Transparency initiatives encourage the different productive sectors to implement systems for collecting and processing environmental information, and to make greater use of environmental assessment tools to endorse their environmental declarations, as just one example.
In the context of the European Green Pact, the economic benefit of the Circular Economy is clear for businesses in all sectors. Companies and professionals in the environmental sector are a support lever for understanding, negotiating and transferring them to the Basque reality. In fact, the knowledge and experience of companies in the environmental sector can be used in other economic sectors to facilitate effective and efficient transition.
4.00PM - 4.10PM Environmental sector, circularity facilitator in the Basque Country
Elisa Toscano, partner and coordinator of the Environmental Surveillance Area. Grunver
5.30pm
Event to announce the Basque Country entries for the “EUROPEAN WEEK FOR WASTE REDUCTION 2022”
5.30pm
Informal drinks reception as part of the "ZIRKULARRAK-CIRCULAR" Exhibition of circular products manufactured in the Basque Country.
With the collaboration
ECO-INNOVATION: COUNTRY RESPONSES TO EUROPEAN CHALLENGES
The path undertaken by the European Commission in order to ensure a Circular Economy model is actually implemented in
the European Union is going to involve a great boost to eco-innovation. The European Commission therefore considers
Eco-innovation as one of the keys to ensure Europe is competitive in the future and a driver of the future green
markets that have to be set up.
Eco-innovation for a Circular Economy is a general framework that requires intersectoral, inter-company and
collaborative solutions. Therefore, the work with and for the community is mandatory and is necessary to create
meeting places for the companies working on projects in order to generate new synergies in and between the value
chains of the different sectors
ROOM A: ECOINNOVATION IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION OF THE VALUE CHAIN
The new Environmental Product Initiative unveiled by the European Commission in 2020 envisages, among many other measures, the requirement for environmental product information with a life cycle approach in digital format, which will allow prescribers and private and public customers to gather accurate environmental information throughout the value chain. This will facilitate the essential cooperation between the links of the main value chains of the Basque economy.
ROOM B: ECOINNOVATION TO INCREASE THE QUALITY OF THE RECYCLED MATERIALS
Steel and aluminium, along with cement and plastic, are the materials that can make the greatest contribution to climate mitigation from a life cycle approach. Materials account for 60% of the manufacturing costs of Basque companies. The Basque Circular Economy Strategy sets the target of increasing the circularity rate of the materials. The current supply problems have turned ecodesign and the use of secondary materials into a competitive need to ensure the growing quality standards required by industry.
ROOM C: ECOINNOVATION IN ADVANCED SERVICES TO PREVENT LOCAL ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS
Reducing local environmental risks with more cost-effective and sustainable solutions needs individual projects that require comprehensive advanced services. They must guarantee the long-term economic and environmental feasibility of those optimum solutions for each case, and thus avoid future negatives. The challenge of consolidating a comprehensive advanced risk mitigation offer that is attractive in a global market is showcased, based on the field experience in the Basque Country.
11:00am - 12:30pm
PS 1
11:00am - 12:30pm
1A CHALLENGE - AUDITORIUM: DIGITAL PRODUCT PASSPORT
One of the main new features of the draft ecodesign requirements applicable to sustainable products consists of progressively designing, piloting and deploying Product Digital Passports.
This passport will integrate environmental information with a life cycle approach to contribute to private and/public customers' decision-making aimed at replacing or reducing consumption of materials, a higher content of recycled materials, a stage of environmentally appropriate use, greater durability and retaining the value of the product and of the materials.
The deployment, which requires a high level of digitalisation combined with reliable environmental information with a life cycle approach, begins with Li-Ion batteries, followed by construction materials, the equipment subject to the Ecodesign Directive and textile products.
Is there the opportunity to generate advanced services that combine digitalisation with rigorous environmental information integrated in the future new digital passport?
1B CHALLENGE - ROOMS 1+2: SUSTAINABLE PLASTICS IN THE AUTOMOTIVE
Raw material accounts for 60% of the value of the plastic product chain, compared to 25% in the case of its industrial transformation. The Basque Country lacks key manufacturers of raw materials at present, while large amounts of waste are generated, mainly from discarded vehicles, that barely contribute value.
The reintroduction of quality recycled material in automotive parts – in the sector that has the highest unit cost per kilo – will make the transformation companies more competitive.
A value chain thus has to be strengthened and which may include renewable materials and ensure a sustainable solution for the low-quality rejects.
How can the challenge of plastic waste be turned into a competitive opportunity for the companies of the plastic value chain?
Haritz Sardon, Responsable Catálisis y Polímeros Sostenibles. Polymat UPV-EHU
1C CHALLENGE - ROOM 4 HALL: SOIL RECOVERY
The extensive Basque experience in the management and recovery of contaminated soil has led to a base of experience that, along with the European Commission's impetus to a new contaminated soils regulation and the approval of the 2030 Basque land protection strategy, can position the Basque advanced services sector as a benchmark in the search for more sustainable solutions from the social, economic and environmental approach with the maximum technical-environmental rigour.
However, comprehensive coordination of the value chain and a private-public partnership advancing towards ensuring the conditions to drive improvement in this area is one of the essential aspects.
Is there a window of opportunity to lead the advanced services in researching and restoration of contaminated soils? Where are the niches of greatest opportunity?
2A CHALLENGE - AUDITORIUM: SUSTAINABLE INDUSTRIALISED CONSTRUCTION
Industrialised construction is a natural market trend that significantly reduces the environmental impact and improves the quality and the maintenance throughout the life of the buildings.
Apart from improving the work conditions, it facilitates the introduction of new features in the materials and enables a circular deconstruction, thus reducing the life cycle cost.
The demand of developers already exists. However, the necessary structural changes to deploy industrialised construction come up against cultural barriers and a value chain that must innovate to manufacture new materials, components and 2D-3D modules.
The proposed European Construction Materials Directive, along with the Digital Product Passport, may contribute to the differentiation and growth of this sector based on ecoinnovation.
Can we harness the opportunity of new materials and of the new industrialisation process that this new construction era needs?
2B CHALLENGE - ROOMS 1+2: SECONDARY STEEL AND ALUMINIUM
75% of the steel and over 23% of the aluminium used by Basque industry come from recycled sources. The environmental footprint of recycled steel and aluminium is reduced to 30% and 7%, respectively, compared to virgin material.
The European Commission's instruments – such as the IED with the Best Available Techniques, the forthcoming incorporation of metal products in the Ecodesign Directive, the deployment of a new European CBAM for importing steel and aluminium with high carbon footprints -, along with the environmental commitments of the leading business corporations, are generating a demand for steel and aluminium products with greater content of recycled material.
This increases the price of quality scrap materials and requires greater technology to be able to manufacture using secondary materials of poorer quality. In the Basque Country, there is a growing business demand for recycled material, an advanced metal industry, a cutting-edge technological offer and an equipment supply industry with potential to provide efficient and ecoinnovative solutions to obtain the maximum value from lower quality scrap.
Are we witnessing an ecoinnovative transformation initiative to manufacture high quality recycled steel and aluminium using low-cost scrap?
Expert speaker: Asier Vicente, Head of Primary & EAF Decarbonization in ArcelorMittal Global R&D Spain and Coordinator of the Electric Arc Furnace Global R&D program. ArcelorMittal
Asier Vicente, Head of Primary & EAF Decarbonization in ArcelorMittal Global R&D Spain and Coordinator of the Electric Arc Furnace Global R&D program. ArcelorMittal
The international Climate Change Adaptation context requires regions to develop its plans to minimise climate risks in coastal, river, agri-forestry, urban areas and in critical infrastructures.
The most important instruments for a faster response to this challenge include spatial planning, with its Sector and Partial Territorial Plans, green public procurement and demand for the most affected business sectors.
A comprehensive response requires the cooperation of stakeholders to manage and simulate data, assess the most appropriate social, economic and environmental innovative solutions, to then implement them and ensure a comprehensive follow-up.
Appropriate climate governance through transformation initiatives such as Urban Klima 2050 is already constructing demonstration projects to position an ecoinnovative offer.
Can we create an offer of advanced comprehensive solutions, that are environmentally and economically optimum, to reduce climate risks in local environments?
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