TREASoURcE
Boosting circularity and initiating systemic changeAbout the project
TREASoURcE is a four-year project (2022-2026) receiving funding from the European Union under the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.
TREASoURcE aims to initiate systemic change by developing systemic circular economy solutions in cities and regions for currently underutilised or unused plastic waste, end-of-life electric vehicle batteries and bio-based waste and side streams. Implementing these solutions together with companies, societies (including citizens, consumers, communities and regional actors) and experts in the field is expected to significantly increase product and material circulation in the Nordic and Baltic Sea Regions.
The objectives are:
- Demonstrated environmental, social, economic and political impacts of the systemic circular economy solutions (Circular plastics, batteries, and biobased side and waste streams) in the Nordics
- Replicated locally tailored systemic CE solutions in the Baltics, Poland and beyond
- Inclusive and just transition to CE for all supported by high level cooperation with all relevant stakeholders
Background
Climate change, environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity are major global threats that require urgent collaborative actions across industry, sectors, cities and regions, communities and citizens. Half of total greenhouse gas emissions and more than 90 % of biodiversity loss come from resource extraction and processing. Global consumption of materials, especially biomass, fossil fuels, metals and minerals are expected to double by 2060 and annual waste generation is estimated to increase by 70 % by 2050.
The combination of the cities and regions will enable large reach and bigger impact and boost the replicability and scalability potential of the circular economy solutions. The systemic circular economy solutions support the regions in introducing circular economy practices to their citizens and businesses to help decouple from fossil virgin resources and excess raw material consumption, increase resilience (self-sufficiency, value chain security, environment, and nature), decrease greenhouse gas emissions, and contribute to climate neutral economies.
GreenDelta in the project
GreenDelta leads a work package that provides metrics, tools, and data for assessing the sustainability of TREASoURcE solutions:
1) to identify in secure way solutions that are ill-suited from sustainability perspective
2) to identify critical success factors and potential risks of existing or planned circular systems,
3) to generate and document indicator results for stakeholders to enable opinion formulation and informed decisions making, and
4) to provide guidance and lessons learned to support a sound transfer and replication of successful circular systems.
With a developed sustainability assessment framework, the work package will conduct an analysis of circular plastics value chain sustainability assessment; batteries reuse and recycling value chain assessment; biobased waste streams for biogas and fertilizers assessment.
Partners
The parties working on this project are:
- VTT Technical Research Centre of Finnland Ltd
- SINTEF AS / SINTEF Energy
- Syddansk Universitet (SDU)
- Tallinna Tehnikaülikool (TalTech)
- Forum Virium Helsinki Oy
- The Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK)
- Ekokumppanit OY (EcoFellows)
- CLIC Innovation Ltd
- Viken fylkeskommune
- Fredrikstad commune
- Tallinna Linn
- Tampere Region Economic Development Agency Business Tempere
- Tartu Linn
- Topsoe AS
- Polyfuels Group AB
- ECO STOR AS
Links and resources
Project duration: 2022 – 2026
TREASoURcE (@TREASoURcE_eu) / Twitter
Funder: European Commission
