ENABLING PROJECT, boosting the potential of biomass-to-biobased value chains

ENABLING proposes tools and methodologies nurturing collaboration and knowledge transfer among practitioners in the agricultural sector. It creates physical and virtual spaces for sharing best practices, brokering innovation in the bioeconomy and providing stakeholders with coaching and guidance on innovation.

The project has created a “Best Practices Atlas” which is available on their website. As an online web-atlas format, this tool currently presents more than 60 best ‘Biobased Products and Processes’ (BBP) practices, from inside and outside Europe, that are wholly or partly transferable to other regions or serve as an inspiration for partners in the value chain. Scientific coordinator Carla de Carolis from ITABIA explains. “This includes for instance bioplastics or chemical building blocks for green-building and nutraceutical sectors, and is produced by using crop residues from olive, orange, thistle, soybean, or soil nutrients produced from wool. The farms and companies interviewed by the Enabling partners confirm an optimal trend of their investments into the bioeconomy. For some of them, exploitation of rural residues proves to be very promising with an increase of revenues up to EUR 8.5 million, with more than 80 tons of biobased products sold every year internationally, and increase in employees from 20 to 40 staff members in recent years.”

Enabling also offers ‘Coaching Activities’ to support biomass producers including farmers and the BBP industry in the uptake of emerging best practices. During coaching, stakeholders are provided personalised content created by experts based on the field of interest. Applicants can either submit their initial inquiry online via completing a questionnaire (available in ten languages), or address their questions during one of the 60 National Workshops and Webinars taking place until November 2020. Further detailed information on the biobased activities are collected and publicly shared via the Innovation Watch, where current and valuable information about technologies, innovation and processes are displayed to help improve and expand stakeholder practices. The Process Flows Platform additionally represents data for different feedstock, collected by different regions in each Enabling partners’ country, and shows the process flows for the different feedstocks. The data is divided in feedstock availability, biobased products and process flows.

The project has recently launched a BiomassTrade Platform. The BiomassTrade Platform is an online venue where biomass producers and biomass processors can meet to exchange currently not valorised organic biomass residues and organic by-products. The BiomassTrade Platform allows farmers and other interested users to search and offer organic biomass residues and by-products, bio-based products as well as services in the different sectors of bioeconomy. The BiomassTrade Platform operates EU-wide but aims to connect stakeholders on a regional level to foster the exchange of goods and services on a regional level. You can find out more in this video.  

https://www.enabling-project.com/