The AlgaeProBANOS project addresses a challenge in the Baltic and North Sea (BANOS) area: how to harmonise economic development with social and environmental goals in line with the Mission Ocean... There is a rising demand for green healthy natural consumer and biobased products, and algae can become the biomass resource of the future, without using fresh water, arable land, or added fertilisers and or pesticides. Both the Baltic and North sea engulf the necessary conditions to scale up production and produce both commodity and sophisticated algae-based products. AlgaeProBanos (APB) brings together 26 experts and industry partners from the BANOS area and beyond, to accelerate product development and market access of sustainable algae solutions. Concretely, APB will support six business pilots, SMEs and startups, to bring eight algae products to the market (TRL7-9) namely in food, feed, nutraceuticals, textiles, cosmetics and plant biostimulants applications. Value chains are based on microalgae and seaweeds, sourced in the Baltic or North Sea or from recycled resources. Innovation takes place in iterative loops with assessments to secure maximum robustness, efficiency, and sustainablesustainability. Furthermore value chains are built with end-users' needs put in the centre, through engaging users in co-creation activities, to ensure maximum uptake. Digital tools are developed to support all actors from biomass producers to consumers. In the end, GoToMarket strategies are tailored to the pilots, providing a trajectory to reach the market. In a meta level, the Algae Accelerator develops new and aggregates existing knowledge, and develops a portfolio of solutions, guidelines and a collaboration and training platform, to benefit the entire algae industry and nourish it into a thriving industry by 2050. The legacy of APB will be deposited to the Ocean Mission BANOS and the EU4Algae.

Decarbonizing the production and consumption of products and materials play a critical role in reaching ambitious climate targets. As a result, a new circular economic system that aims to reduce primary material use (in addition to energy efficiency and fuel shifts) can address both Greenhous Gas emissions (GHG)s and increase resource efficiency. However, current GHG mitigation models and scenarios that inform climate policymakers do not generally include circular economy (CE) options. They also do not cover the possible synergies of the CE with other societal goals such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), nor the challenges involved in rearranging value chains and consumer behaviour. CIRCOMOD addresses these challenges by developing a new generation of advanced models and scenarios that will assess how CE can reduce future GHGs and material use. The project brings together a unique consortium of leading research teams from different disciplines, including industrial ecology and material flow modelling, process-oriented integrated assessment modelling, and macro-economic modelling. It aims for a breakthrough in integrating CE and GHG mitigation assessments by developing an analytical framework that maps circular economy strategies to existing influential climate scenarios; by providing robust and timely CE data in an open repository; and, by improving the representation of the CE in leading models used by European and global institutions, while strengthening links between the models. These key scientific breakthroughs enable robust scientific assessments in collaboration with stakeholders across policy and industry. It will provide timely input to international assessments such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Resource Panel (IRP). CIRCOMOD will provide actionable insights into the circular economy and help address one of the largest challenges of the coming decades.