Raw Materials and Circular Societies Lighthouse (EIT RawMaterials)
Challenge: Raw, processed and advanced materials, from primary and secondary sources, are the backbone of the economy, and a radical shift is required from linear to circular thinking. End-of-life products must be considered as a resource for another cycle, while losses and stocks of unused materials must be minimized and valorized along the value chain. In addition, the interactions between materials must be considered to define the best circular solution from a systemic standpoint. Awareness of the benefits of closing material loops must be raised in society. The successful transition to the circular economy at the global scale, depend on the reliable and sustainable supply and management of raw materials.
Approach: EIT RawMaterials will support activities that optimize the efficient discovery, characterization, processing and flow of materials to move towards ‘zero waste’, a core target of circular economy. The LH will integrate results, knowledge and data into a digital map of resource locations and their flows within cities and between cities and the surrounding environment (‘smart materials grid’). This LH is aligned with the EU Circular Economy Package and the EU Zero Waste strategy to achieve a Circular Society, and provides a focal point for cross-KIC collaboration.
LH topics across the value chain:
The metallurgical sector is one of the main contributors to decoupling growth from resource use: ‘to do more with less’
The development of new types of products considering circularity from the design phase is one of the main priorities of the EIT Rawmaterials. These products will clearly support the Circular Economy strategy (e.g., by extending the product’s life cycle, making its dismantling easier or substituting current materials by more circular ones).
This topic will consider different types of tools to support this transition process, e.g., MFAs for specific material flows in cities; tools to support good governance approaches.
including dismantling, sorting and recovering technologies (e.g., recovery of rare earth elements from end-of-life products.
bringing together expertise from the resource efficiency, LCA, water and energy fields.
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