Fertilisation is key to feeding the growing world population, yet the most common fertilisation scheme based on conventional fertilisers poses threats to the environment (e.g. eutrophication caused by nutrient leaching) and sustainability of the EU food system (due to high dependence on fertiliser imports from third countries). Thus, among the key EU political priorities is to reduce by 20% the use of conventional fertilisers by 2030 and to decrease nutrient losses by 50%. A promising solution for this aim are alternative fertilisers produced from recovered nutrients from secondary raw materials (e.g. bio-waste, sewage sludge). However, their wide scale deployment is hindered by lack of awareness about alternative fertilisation, concerns regarding their technical viability and the disparity of legislations that creates a state of uncertainty. In this context, FER-PLAY is a comprehensive approach to gather, harmonise, select and complement the knowledge on alternative fertiliser value chains and diffuse it to promote the wide-scale production and application of alternative fertilisers with best environmental, social and economic performance as well as technical and regulatory viability. Thus, FER-PLAY employs a unique methodology for mapping the value chains, select the most promising ones and assess their impacts. FER-PLAY engages key stakeholders in co-creation of results and broadly disseminates them. The consortium gathers key players from the whole value chain: (1) alternative fertiliser producers from all the main types of secondary raw materials (producers of digestate- 183 members, of compost- 120 members and of struvite), (2) entities representing conventional (1.5M members), organic (100,000 members) and young (200,000 members) farmers, (3) a Pan-European network with +100 members representing public administrations, supported by (4) waste valorisation and agriculture research institutes, (5) market strategists and (6) communication experts.

Peatlands are crucial in climate change resilience as critical habitats for biodiversity, ecosystem services, and Carbon storage. Today, 50% of the EU peatland area is degraded due to peat extraction, with a high environmental impact associated and poses a high risk for the Green Transition goals. The horticultural industry depends entirely on peat for growing media, as current alternatives face technical, socio-cultural, and economic barriers. PEATLESS aims to contribute to overcoming these barriers to promote the uptake of sustainable and locally available substrates blends with reduced peat content in selected horticultural systems: mushrooms, seedlings and ornamental. These blends will be designed through co-creation and will be tailored to sectorial needs. The performance of these alternative media will be demonstrated and showed to growers at commercial facilities across 4 key regions for horticulture. To demonstrate performance and support decision-making, a digital sensoring system for results monitoring will be developed. To overcome socio-cultural barriers, social innovation, educational and innovative dissemination activities will boost knowledge exchange to raise growers’ confidence in alternatives to peat. To overcome economic barriers, an integral feasibility assessment will be developed (e.g., LCSA) followed by new business and organisational models’ creation. Furthermore, an upscaling plan to replicate the PEATLESS approach at national and European levels will ensure project continuation. This 3-year project involves 12 partners from 4 countries, including RTOs, universities, industry, end-users’ representatives and decision-makers, following a multi-actor approach. By 2050, significant long-term impact is expected, predominantly: 1) Environmental: 2.5m m3 of peat saved with a reduction of 900k t CO2eq); 2) Socio-economic: 5,000 horticultural business with PEATLESS substrates across 40 regions; 3) Policy: +30 recommendations.

BIOMETHAVERSE (Demonstrating and Connecting Production Innovations in the BIOMETHAne uniVERSE) aims to diversify the technology basis for biomethane production in Europe, to increase its cost-effectiveness, and to contribute both to the uptake of biomethane technologies and to the priorities of the SET Plan Action 8. To this aim five innovative biomethane production pathways will be demonstrated in five European countries: France, Greece, Italy, Sweden, and Ukraine. The project is based on the following founding pillars: Demonstration of innovative biomethane pathways; Technology optimisation and upscaling by technoeconomic flowsheeting; Environmental and social sustainability assessment; Replicability, market penetration, support to planning decisions of other investors and project developers, policy recommendations to policy makers; Dissemination, exploitation and communication of project results. BIOMETHAVERSE relates, within the Work Program 2021-2022 on Climate, Energy and Mobility, to the Call “Sustainable, secure and competitive energy supply”, specifically to the topic HORIZON-CL5-2021-D3-03-16: Innovative biomethane production as an energy carrier and a fuel. The project production routes cover one or a combination of the following production pathways: thermochemical, biochemical, electrochemical, and biological. As a starting point, four demonstration plants use conventional anaerobic digestion (AD), and one uses conventional gasification. In the BIOMETHAVERSE demonstrators, CO2 effluents from AD or gasification and other intermediate products are combined with renewable hydrogen or renewable electricity directly to increase the overall biomethane yield. All demonstrated production routes go beyond conventional technologies, with a circular approach for energy and material, while aiming at reducing the overall biomethane production costs and increasing the biomethane production. The demonstrated technologies will reach TRL 6-7 at the end of the project.