Luisa Marelli

• Physics
• Project Manager at European Commission

The report provides a comprehensive assessment of progress towards the European Green Deal (EGD), the European Union’s transformative agenda for achieving climate neutrality by 2050. The analysis encompasses 154 quantifiable targets from 44 policy documents between 2019 and 2024 across key sectors such as climate, energy, circular economy, transpor...

Ensuring everyone in the EU and the world has access to a nutritious diet in a sustainable way is one of the greatest challenges we face, and one of the most ambitious targets of the Sustainable Development Goals framework. The need for a transformation of food systems towards sustainability is increasingly being recognised, as demonstrated by the...

EU food systems resemble complex webs of relationships spanning supply chains, consumption patterns, ecosystems, human health, and planetary boundaries and demanding systemic approaches for fostering a transition towards more sustainable outcomes. The Farm to Fork Strategy outlines a vision for such a transition to align healthy societies with a he...

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the plan of action to secure peace and prosperity for people and the planet. The SDGs are designed to be integrated and indivisible. In this context, the concept of SDG interlinkages refers to the complex network of interactions existing within and betwe...

From 15 to 17 May 2023 the European Parliament is hosting a conference on the topic 'Beyond Growth'. This study introduces participants and other stakeholders and interested parties to the debate on going beyond growth. Organised in two parts, the study first presents the status quo, with our reliance on economic growth as the main policy driver an...

Scientific research has been acknowledged to play a pivotal role in achieving the United Nations' 2030 Agenda. Vice-versa, since its adoption, the 2030 Agenda has been reinvigorating the academic production on sustainable development. This study provides a systematic literature review of the most used and newly developed approaches by academic rese...

The UN 2030 Agenda and its SDGs are increasingly gaining momentum as a vehicle to foster a sustainable development transition. The EC is a frontrunner in this transition process and its political priorities are strongly linked with the SDGs. This report contributes to the mainstreaming of the SDGs by analysing how the policy initiatives of the curr...

This report presents the Consumer Footprint Calculator to assess the environmental impacts of the different lifestyles of EU citizens. It is based on the Consumption Footprint indicator, which follows a life cycle-based approach considering the entire supply-chain of products, and applies the Environmental Footprint method to estimate the potential...

The debate on forest bioenergy sustainability has been so far dominated by assessments made through the carbon emissions lens. The biodiversity perspective has been largely missing. The European Green Deal's ambitious targets have brought biodiversity and ecosystem condition restoration and conservation to the core of the EU's legislative portfolio...

Science for Policy report by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission's science and knowledge service. Modelling is an essential tool to increase the understanding of qualitative and quantitative drivers of sustainability, contributing to the implementation of specific SDGs. The report presents the mapping of JRC models against SDG...

The demand for wood-based energy is foreseen to grow as energy and climate policies around the world promote the use of bioenergy for climate change mitigation. However, the carbon impacts of forest bioenergy range widely in the literature. The value-choices made on the response of forest management to bioenergy demand have a major influence on the...

The EU Bioeconomy Strategy, updated in 2018, in its Action Plan pledges an EU-wide, internationally coherent monitoring system to track economic, environmental and social progress towards a sustainable bioeconomy. This paper presents the approach taken by the European Commission’s (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC) to develop such a system. To accomp...

Purpose We hypothesize that the current heated scientific debate on bioenergy sustainability is fuelled by flaws in the interpretation phase of bioenergy LCA studies rather than by the lack of studies or shared methodologies. The interpretation phase is the key step in LCA studies, which guarantees their quality and consistency and gives meaning to...

The EU Recovery Plan represents a unique window of opportunity to restart the socioeconomic system after the Covid-19 crisis, fostering a shift towards sustainable development. The UN Agenda 2030, with its 17 goals and 169 targets, provides a compass to orientate the recovery in a sustainable way, considering together the economic, social and envi...

The emissions from transport and residential sectors have significant shares in total emissions of Europe. In this study, we identified key priorities in support to the EU Macro-regional Strategies implementation based on an ex-ante assessment focusing on two EU macro-regions: Adriatic-Ionian (AIR) and Alpine (ALP).

The environmental sustainability governance and actual climate change mitigation potential of bioenergy and biofuels are the subjects of a heated debate in Europe and globally. An analysis of the roots of this debate is beyond the scope of this work; however, misinterpretation and misrepresentation of LCA results has played an important role in po...

The term ‘wicked problems’ was coined by Rittel and Webber [1] in the ‘70s to describe problems of public policy which are influenced by many dynamic social and political factors as well as biophysical complexities [2]. Wicked problems are characterized by “Uncertainty over consequences, diverse and multiple engaged interests, conflicting knowledge...

The European Commission has outlined future transport research and innovation (R&I) priorities to decarbonise the European transport sector in its Strategic Transport Research and Innovation Agenda (STRIA) that includes seven roadmaps in seven priority areas that cut across transport modes. In order to support the implementation of STRIA, a Transpo...

The report delivers an assessment of EU biomass production, uses, flows and related environmental impacts for the sectors agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture, and algae. Quantitative estimates are derived from available data and current knowledge, yet highlighting the uncertainties and the remaining gaps. The work is framed within the...

This report illustrates part of the results from the first two years of JRC biomass study, carried out in the context of the mandate on the provision to EC services of data and analysis on biomass flow, supply and demand on a long-term basis.

TRIMIS is an open-access transport information system. The TRIMIS database contains transport research and innovation projects and programmes that are arranged according to the seven Strategic Transport Research and Innovation Agenda (STRIA) roadmaps that were adopted by the European Commission in May 2017. The roadmaps cover: cooperative, connecte...

The Renewable Energy Directive (RED) (2009/28/EC) and the Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) (2009/30/EC), amended in 2015 by Directive (EU) 2015/1513 (so called ‘ILUC Directive’), fix a minimum requirement for greenhouse gas (GHG) savings for biofuels and bioliquids for the period until 2020, and set the rules for calculating the greenhouse impact of bi...

The Commission's legislative proposal for a recast of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED-recast) (COM(2016) 767), in Art. 26(7), specifies the minimum greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions saving thresholds that bioenergy must comply with in order to count towards the renewables targets and to be eligible for public support. Annex V (liquid biofuels) and...

This presentation was delivered at the seminar titled ”Does the Clean Energy Package come clean on bioenergy?”, organized at the European Parliament by BirdLife, Fern, Transport & Environment and hosted by MEP Bas Eickhout and MEP Jo Leinen. The goal of the presentation is to introduce to the audience a summary of JRC/Commission findings on GHG emi...

This database accompanies the JRC Report EUR 27215 EN. The database contains all the input numbers and sources used for the calculations of the typical and default GHG emission values presented in Annex VI of of the Proposal for a Recast of the Renewable Energy Directive COM(2016) 767. It also contains: i) final GHG emissions results, ii) all sourc...

This database accompanies the JRC Report EUR 28349 EN. The database contains all the input numbers and sources used for the calculations of the typical and default GHG emission values presented in Annex V of of the Proposal for a Recast of the Renewable Energy Directive COM(2016) 767. It also contains: i) final GHG emissions results, ii) several wo...

ThinkForest Brief: A summary of the report "Forest biomass, carbon neutrality and climate change mitigation" published by the European Forest Institute (EFI). Available at: www.efi.int/portal/policy_advice/publications/from_science_ to_policy/fstp3/

The Paris Agreement and the EU Climate and Energy Framework set ambitious but necessary targets. Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by phasing out the technologies and infrastructures that cause fossil carbon emissions is one of today’s most important challenges. In the EU, bioenergy is currently the largest renewable energy source used. Most...

The Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and economic feasibility of electricity production from the anaerobic digestion of different substrates are studied in this paper. Three realistic substrate options for the climatic and soil conditions of a modelled farm in the Po Valley in Italy are analysed: manure from a dairy farm, Sorghum and maize.A detailed...

The European Union relies largely on bioenergy to achieve its climate and energy targets for 2020 and beyond.We assess, using Attributional Life Cycle Assessment (A-LCA), the climate change mitigation potential of three bioenergy power plants fuelled by residual biomass compared to a fossil system based on the European power generation mix. We stud...

The EU legislation contains a set of mandatory targets specific for the EU transport sector which aims at achieving the overall objective of a European sustainably fuelled transport system. In particular, Directives 2009/28/EC (Renewable Energy Directive) and 2009/30/EC (Fuel Quality Directive) fix a threshold of 35% savings of GHG emissions for bi...

During the last decades, algae received increasing interest as potential source of advanced biofuels production resulting in a considerable attention from research, industry and policy makers. We report on the current-status of technology options for the potential exploitation of algae (of both macro- and microalgae species) in the biofuels and bio...

Slides of the presentation given at the 23rd European Biomass Conference (EUBCE) held in Vienna (Austria) on 1 - 4 June 2015

We analysed the environmental impacts of three biogas systems based on dairy manure, sorghum and maize. The geographical scope of the analysis is the Po valley, in Italy. The anaerobic digestion of manure guarantees high GHG (Green House Gases) savings thanks to the avoided emissions from the traditional storage and management of raw manure as orga...

ILUC emissions from biofuels are commonly estimated with sophisticated economic models of world agriculture. Because these are often complex, the JRC in collaboration with Overmars and PBL has evaluated and developed an alternative approach base on “historical” data. This approach gives simple and transparent estimates of ILUC emissions in recent y...

The Renewable Energy Directive (RED) (2009/28/EC) and the Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) (2009/30/EC) fix a threshold of savings of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for biofuels and bioliquids, and set the rules for calculating the greenhouse impact of biofuels, bioliquids and their fossil fuels comparators. To help economic operators to declare the GH...

The use of biofuels in transport is being promoted as a means of tackling climate change, diversifying energy sources and securing energy supply. Biofuels production also provides new options for using agricultural crops. However, it also gives rise to environmental, social and economic concerns which are the subject of intense debate worldwide. Th...

The European Union (EU) relies largely on bioenergy to achieve its climate and energy targets for 2020 and beyond. Special focus is placed on utilization of biomass residues, which are considered to cause low environmental impacts.

The report presents an independent estimate of the part of LUC emissions due to deforestation, starting from the 29% of historical deforestation area (and estimated emissions) caused by expansion of different crops. The deforestation area and emissions per tonne of extra crop are converted to emissions per MJ biofuel from that crop. The average glo...

The 2013 edition of the Strategic Energy Technologies review covers 22 low carbon-technologies, providing information about current and projected market penetration, barriers to large-scale deployment and ongoing RD&D efforts. This insight allows policy makers and the research and innovation community to identify potential opportunities and the gap...

"Indirect land use change for biofuels: Testing predictions and improving analytical methodologies" by S. Kim and B. Dale [1], presents a principal inference not supported by its results, that rests on a fundamental conceptual error, and that has no place in the current discussion of biofuels’ climate effects. The paper takes correlation between tw...

L’espansione delle coltivazioni destinate alla produzione di biocombustibili di prima generazione rischia di far aumentare le emissioni di gas serra invece di diminuirle

The swift deployment on a large scale of technologies with a low-carbon footprint in the European energy system is a prerequisite for the transition to a low-carbon society - a key strategic objective of the European Union. A necessary condition for the timely market roll-out of these low-carbon energy technologies is an acceleration of their devel...

The present investigation, carried out as a case study in a typical major city situated in a European coal combustion region (Krakow, Poland), aims at quantifying the impact on the urban air quality of residential heating by coal combustion in comparison with other potential pollution sources such as power plants, industry, and traffic. Emissions w...

Krakow is Poland¿s second largest city and one of the most polluted cities in Europe with regards to particulate matter (PM) and associated compounds, such as benzo(a)pyrene (B(a)P). The study was designed to apportion coal combustion sources in comparison with other main sources for these pollutants PM10 samples were collected in Krakow during typ...

Inventories for global aerosol and aerosol precursor emissions have been collected (based on published inventories and published simulations), assessed and prepared for the year 2000 (present-day conditions) and for the year 1750 (pre-industrial conditions). These global datasets establish a comprehensive source for emission input to global modelin...

The European Commission has proposed a target limit value of 1 ng/m3 annual mean concentration of benzo[a]pyrene (used as a marker for the carcinogenic risk of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) as part of the 4th Air Quality Daughter Directive [1]. Episodes of high ambient benzo[a]pyrene concentrations (up to 200 times higher than the EU target val...

The ``Cooperative programme for monitoring and evaluation of long-range transmission of air pollutants in Europe'' (EMEP) is a scientifically based program for international co-operation to solve transboundary air pollution problems. An EMEP monitoring station has been operational at the Ispra site of the Joint Research Centre since 1985, and since...

We describe here recent experiments with our Single Particle Analysis and Sizing System (SPASS) for the on-line characterization of single atmospheric aerosol particles. Aerosols are introduced into the SPASS via a differentially pumped particle inlet system that forms a nar- row particle beam. They are sized with a 2-laser velocimeter and sub- seq...

In the atmosphere the photo-oxidation of aromatic compounds, mainly initiated by reactions with the OH radical, has an impact on photochemical oxidant formation and is believed to be a major source of secondary aerosol in polluted areas. These investigations focus on the hygroscopicity of the organic aerosols produced (mainly from toluene) under di...