Environmental research – focus on two H2020 projects won by LIST

In the framework of its activities in the environmental domain and more precisely in life cycle sustainability and risk assessment (LCSA), LIST is pleased to announce that two projects were recently accepted as part of Horizon 2020, the European (EU) Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. In this article, focus on the H2020 programme and on the accepted projects ‘Nature4Cities’ and ‘SPOTVIEW’.

H2020 & LIST

Horizon 2020 is the financial instrument implementing the Innovation Union, a Europe 2020 flagship initiative aimed at securing Europe's global competitiveness.

As a Research and Technology Organisation (RTO), at LIST we are highly involved in contributing to the core mission of RTOs, which is to harness science and technology in the service of innovation, to improve quality of life and to build economic competitiveness. As our mission is to have a direct impact on the economy and society, the Horizon 2020 programme is a real opportunity for the institute working together with its public and private sector partners. One common goal is to develop a common stance on the allocation of public funding for academic-oriented basic research and industry-oriented targeted research. 

> To learn more about H2020, visit the official Horizon 2020 website or the National Contact Point for Luxembourg.

Recently accepted H2020 projects

With six projects accepted in 2015 covering a range of topics across all three H2020 programmes – Excellent science, Industrial leadership and Societal challenges – two new projects part of the Societal challenges programme have been accepted in June 2016. LIST's experts are ready to start working on them!

Nature4Cities

Nature Based Solutions for re-naturing cities: knowledge diffusion and decision support platform through new collaborative models (Nature4Cities) is a 48 months project coordinated by NOBATEK (FR) in collaboration with key partners: ENSA Nantes (FR), EURECAT (ES), TECNALIA (ES), ACCIONA (ES), CARTIF (ES), D'APPOLONIA (IT), LIST (LU) and other 17 partners, including SMEs, municipalities, industrial clusters, universities, etc.

What is the project all about? Based on a detailed mapping of urban challenges and relevant nature-based solutions (NBS), Nature4Cities aims at developing complementary and interactive modules to engage urban stakeholders in a collective-learning process about renaturing cities, develop and circulate new business, financial and governance models for NBS projects, as well as provide tools for the impacts assessment, valorisation and follow-up of NBS projects.

As a key partner, LIST is the leader of a work package dedicated to an economic impact assessment of NBS projects, developing a monetary ecosystem service-based value scale and an alternative valuation scale based on the quality of life. The combination of these two value scales for urban nature will help to put the economic analysis in perspective with social impacts. 

> For more info about Nature4Cities, please contact Benedetto Rugani via email.

SPOTVIEW

Sustainable Processes and Optimized Technologies for Industrially Efficient Water Usage (SPOTVIEW) is a 42 months project coordinated by the Centre Technique de l'Industrie des Papiers, Cartons et Celluloses (CTP, FR) in collaboration with key partners ArcelorMittal Innovacion (ES), CERTH (GR), VTT (FI), BFI (DE), LIST (LU) and 9 other partners including SMEs and industries.

What is the project all about? The objective of SPOTVIEW is to develop and demonstrate innovative, sustainable and efficient processes and technologies components, in order to optimize the use of natural resources, especially water, in three industrial sectors: Dairy, Pulp and Paper and Steel processing. Each alternative process and technology will be assessed in terms of environmental impacts and benefits. Economic exploitation of the proposed technologies is also pursued through a well described business case scenario and market penetration strategy.

As a key partner, LIST is the leader of a work package which is dedicated to environmental and techno-economic evaluation of the technological solutions, implemented via SPOTVIEW project. LIST’s experts are responsible for the holistic environmental evaluation (Life Cycle Assessment methodology) and for the occupational risk assessment (worker health on production site).

> For more info about SPOTVIEW, please contact Elorri Igos via email.

>> More information about Nature4Cities and SPOTVIEW will be soon available in our projects’ section on list.lu.
>> Do not hesitate to contact Enrico Benetto for any further information on LCSA at LIST.