Tom Rommens’s scientific contributions

Every three years, the European Commission publishes a list of critical raw materials (CRMs), to guide efforts in improving supply chain resilience, including intra-EU extraction and increased material recovery. However, increasing recovery rates for all 34 CRMs across the EU is unfeasible in the short term. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a pragmatic, demand-driven methodology for prioritizing CRM recovery, focusing on actionable and broadly applicable criteria. Unlike traditional approaches based on waste supply or future consumer demand, this methodology includes current industrial demand for primary CRMs that could be replaced by secondary CRMs. This creates a market pull for secondary CRMs, increasing economic viability of recovery efforts. As a first step, CRMs are assessed for recycling feasibility and industrial demand. The result is a selection of CRMs emerging as potential targets to increase recovery. In a second step, put-on-market data for product categories of interest is combined with composition data of the selected CRMs, as researched in the FutuRaM project, to identify future urban mining potential. This approach ensures that waste policies and recovery strategies are driven by industrial needs, encouraging CRM-specific recycling technologies, product-specific collection schemes, and efficient urban mining aligned with market priorities.

In a ‘circular economy’, materials and products are used more efficiently, repaired, shared, reused or recycled. Circularity is one of the guiding principles of sustainable development. It aims at retaining the value and functionality of products and components, and usually helps to reduce the environmental impact of products or activities. In this Blueprint, we provide guidelines for developing ‘circular smartgrids’. A smartgrid is a network of interconnected energy sources and consumers that together form a local (bounded) energy system. The system is autonomously controlled and can usually operate either connected to the distribution grid or in ‘island mode’. Through information technology, the energy system is optimised in terms of economy, security and sustainability. Several concrete options and considerations for the final design of the circular smart grid at the Transfo site are discussed. These include DC and AC grids and their interconnection, the potential for renewable energy and storage, and consumption simulations. Finally, some technical and legal challenges are discussed. We conclude by presenting the detailed design for the Transfo site, and adding a number of recommendations

This report is part of the dissemination of the circular business innovation methodologies developed in CIRCUSOL (https://circusol.eu). It includes information on educational materials developed for a short course, which can be given both directly in universities and through online courses such as MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), and the reporting of interactive workshops to demonstrate how to apply these methodologies.

Voor u ligt het eerste structuuroverzicht van de Vlaamse bio-economie dat een inzicht moet geven in de productie en verwerking van biomassa in de Vlaamse economie. Deze bio-economie monitor is een essentieel onderdeel van het Vlaamse beleidsplan bio-economie en ondersteunt evidence-based beleid door het in kaart brengen van de huidige situatie (2018), maar ook over een langere periode. Het overzicht is opgebouwd met behulp van verschillende beschikbare officiële databronnen en statistieken, aangevuld met sectorspecifieke informatie die in het kader van deze studie verkregen en verwerkt werden.