Funded by: European Research Executive Agency
Project duration: 1.1.2024 – 31.12.2026
The SYMBIO project provides European regional communities with tools and methodological approaches to building bio-based business models based on circularity by-design and industrial symbiosis.
Thanks to tools for integrating big data and artificial intelligence, SYMBIO shapes 10 symbiotic business models with high-profitability and sustainability, replicable at the EU level to increase bio-based products on the market and provides a system to modelling, measure and monitor symbiosis and its social, economic and environmental impacts. SYMBIO methodology will be designed, tested and validated in 12 EU pilot regions (Lombardy, Piedmont, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Emilia-Romagna, Carinthia, Slovenia, Croazia, Andalusia, Bruxelles Capital, Wallonia, Flanders) that have been selected based on the estimation of their bio-based resources defined by raw material availability, socio-economic indicators, intangible networks and infrastructures and potential for development of CBE close-to-market supply chains and current trends. Involving all supply chain actors in a quadruplex approach will help unlock and stimulate local development potential by promoting sustainable, innovative, tangible and participatory pathways to the green transition through an inclusive bottom-up CBE nexus.
The concept is based on the synergistic use of local biomass by creating Regional Data Hubs, which will support the design of zero-waste value chains through big data solutions and artificial intelligence (VCG.AI platform). To maximise the use of local resources, Material Flow Analysis (MFA) and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) will identify the most promising symbiotic business models replicable in other EU regions beyond the 12 pilot regions. Sustainability performance will be shown through a reporting system, a decision support solution for all operators in the supply chain who can count on a system for measuring the competitive advantage of the symbiosis industrial model and consider it a monitoring tool. Finally, bio-based industrial facilities’ social, environmental and economic benefits will be measured, integrated into the VCG.AI platform and disseminated through communication actions and stakeholder engagement.