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Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

Objectives of the commitment

The overall objective is to enable a prosperous growth of the European bioeconomy through a substantially larger sustainable and competitive supply of EU's domestic forest raw material for the forest based wood, fibre and chemical industries. The sub-objectives are: 1. To demonstrate how EU can produce 20% more wood to the industries through enhanced silviculture 2. To bring the wood resource and its potential to the awareness of forest owner and visible to the wood markets by novel forest management practices, IT-tools and smart systems 3. Introduce and demonstrate intelligent and resource efficient machinery and transportation fleet for the feedstock supply for future customers and transfer it over entire EU 4. Introduce policy measures that support sustainable wood mobilization and other ecosystem services in harmony with all categories of forest owners

Description of the activities

All activities of SWEETSTOCK aim at bringing a sustainable and larger base of forest raw material economically and ecologically available for the existing industrial infrastructure of current forest-based industries and the emerging bio-economy's new industrial ecosystems. SWEETSTOCK uses best available experimental results over EU on growing and supplying wood on a sustainable basis to industrial production of goods and services for the growing bioeconomy. Demonstrations include technology and knowledge transfer of proven and competitive wood supply solutions across EU. Demonstrations and simulations also include completely new innovative technologies as parts of full supply chains of feedstocks. Four areas of activities follow:
1. Best trees and forest management for feedstocks of bio-economy
EU's forest resource is vast, 24 billion m3 in terms of growing stock. It enables a wide alteration of outputs through creative and future oriented management including biomaterial as well as other ecosystem services when requested. The current raw material base of EU's forest is described and analyzed from the perspective of future raw material needs of selected biorefinery concepts. Special emphasis is put on the changes that novel products or novel industrial ecosystems may invoke on wood demand. A set of case studies are conducted to illustrate, how mechanical wood processing, fibre industries and new products change including forest managemen and silvicultural practices. 2. Increase general awareness of forests as sustainable source of renewable biomaterial for forest owners, manufacturing industry and consumers inside and outside Europe
EU's forest is owned by 15 000 000 non industrial private forest owners, large number of companies and public bodies such as states and municipalities. Number of studies have revealed the urgency for entirely new approaches to bring the forest and wood visible to forest owners and to buyers of wood. The big data from large forest areas is already in place to enable both quantitative and monetary visualization of forest holding to forest owner. Open services that link forest owner's access to this data and convert it into meaningful management advices and alternatives can be built. Same data can be used to visualize the forest to the wood buyers to target their purchase efforts wiht much higher precision than ever before. SWEETSTOCK develops and demonstrates a set of modern, social media and internet based solutions supporting forest owners to express the possibilities of the forest holding. New services for forest management, excecution of practical silvicultural treatments, wood sales etc. by service providers including SME's are mapped, developed and transferred. For wood buyers, big data solutions for tactical and operational levels (spotting of suitable targets for buying and harvesting) are developed and demonstrated implementing and developing results from the FLEXWOOD project. E.g. Finland and Sweden now have freely available forest resource map in 400*150 m2 pixels over entire the countries showing growing stock, dominating tree species etc.
3. Efficient feedstock supply. SWEETSTOCK develops and demonstrates new forest machine solutions and approaches to use the existing harvesting and transport fleet resources more efficiently. Analyzing the supply patterns of wood and different wood processin industries, the seasonal variation of fleet use can be diminished. New tutoring tools for operators of machinery are developed to support economic driving, reduced soil and environmental impacts and improve the job satisfaction of operators. 4. Policies that support wood mobilization are grouped and developed. SWEETSTOCK analyses tehcnology, energy, industrial, environmental and forest policies and based on this analysis creates approaches, where the wood supply chain between forest owners, wood suppliers and users is streamlined using new IT -solutions, incentives to support efficient organizations and new approaches for forest resource management.

Description of the expected impacts

SWEETSTOCK both invents new technologies and transfers improved existing ones to new areas. The resource efficiency and economic profitability of harvesting and transportation is improved. Fundamentally new approaches tor reach forest owners, support their forest management and wood supply are created and demonstrated. The ultimate goal of these improvements is to create competitiveness for wood against other raw materials and paying capacity for purchasing of the raw material and thus motivate forest owners to sell their wood to the growing markets. These developments are a necessity for the re-industrialization of forest-based industrial sector. SWEETSTOCK aims at producing new research based knowledge, technological solutions and service innovations particularly for SMEs, by an active exchange of knowledge and technology in an open-minded testing of those system and approaches across Europe in innovative settings. SWEETSTOCK and ongoing FLEXWOOD impacts contribute to the goals of EIP on raw materials as follows: o Accelerating knowledge development, technology transfer and up-take and maintaining EU industrial leadership on wood processing o Fostering science for transforming energy technologies to enable raw material supply for the increasing demand from biorefineries and rising wood construction sector o Contributing towards the worldwide transition to a low carbon economy o The sustainability of the technological solutions is ensured by using sustainability impact assessment tools o SWEETSTOCK also creates markets for forest biomass and creates incomes for forest owners due to higher wood paying capacity and increasing supply volumes. SWEETSTOCK produces novel solutions for woody biomass harvesting, storage and transport, as well as for the selection of optimal technology and investment level of wood supply chain designed for wood users ranging from large industrial multi-product ecosystems to smaller woodworking industries. SWEETSTOCK accelerates the economical and sustainable mobilization wood resources for re-industrialization of forest sector in the EU by technology and knowledge development and transfer: SWEETSTOCK brings together the leading research organizations, forest owners, industries and technology providers in forest wood mobilization and supply. Concrete machine technology, logistical and IT innovations will be developed in SWEETSTOCK improving the cost competitiveness of wood based products and forest based services to level that increases the demand of wood and accelerates the growth of its use to feed and fuel the emerging bioeconomy in the EU. Strong and versatile technology transfer (prototype presentation, field demonstration, use of social media tools developed in e.g. COST Action FP0902 together with commitment's own web pages and seminars) fosters the adsorption to practice in wide range over the whole EU and beyond.

Coordinating organisation & role

Name of the coordinating organisation: Finnish Forest Research InstituteCountry: FinlandEntity profile: Governmental/public bodyRole within the commitment:

Metla is an independent, governmental research organization founded in 1917 operating under the supervision of
the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Metla's mission is to promote the ecologically, economically and
socially sustainable development of the forests and forestry through research. Metla conducts research about
forest nature and environment, the different uses of forests, and forestry and the forest cluster. Research is
organised into problem-oriented projects and multi-disciplinary research programmes.

Other partners

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Angewandten Forschung e.V.

Name of the organisation: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Angewandten Forschung e.V. Country: Germany Entity profile: Governmental/public body
Role within the commitment: Fraunhofer will lead the CFRP and GFRP recycling research.
Fraunhofer will perform corrosion tests on the developed materials.
Fraunhofer will work with CIDAUT on the implementation, validation and refinement of LCCA tools for the project. Fraunhofer is the Quality Manager of the Consortium and will oversee deliverables and general reporting are produced with the best possible quality following agreed review standards.

Fundacion Cidaut

Name of the organisation: Fundacion Cidaut Country: Spain Entity profile:
Role within the commitment: CIDAUT will lead the research activities on materials recycling and compounding, implementing lab scale demonstrators of each process at its premises and, later, supporting end-users upscale the processes.
CIDAUT will perform mechanical tests, microstructural analyses, injection moulding capability studies on the developed materails, and will work with Fraunhofer on the implementation, validation and refinement of LCCA tools for the project.

RWTH Aachen University (Institute of plastic processing (IKV)

Name of the organisation: RWTH Aachen University (Institute of plastic processing (IKV) Country: Germany Entity profile: Governmental/public body
Role within the commitment: RWTH will implement the novel 3D Generative Preforming process (3D Fibre Spraying) that enables to create high-value long fibre-reinforced 3D preforms for thermoplastic and thermoset composites at low process costs (different kinds of yarn as a raw material, low tooling costs due to low cavity pressures). This cost effective technology allows to align the sprayed fibres in order to produce high-performance, engineered anisotropic products.

Universita' di Cagliari

Name of the organisation: Universita' di Cagliari Country: Italy Entity profile:
Role within the commitment: University of Cagliari is one of the leading European organization in the resin design and coupling with thermoplastic and thermose materials. University of Cagliari will support in the definition of the composite materials, both from CFRP/GFRP, ABS and Rare Earth composite material.

Relight

Name of the organisation: Relight Country: Italy Entity profile: Private sector - SME
Role within the commitment: RELIGHT will work with ITRB to provide the research partners with residues for the recycled ABS supply and the REE recovery processes, including their HydroWEEE process as part of the processes to be studied and analyzed.

Piaggio Aerospace

Name of the organisation: Piaggio Aerospace Country: Italy Entity profile: Private sector - large company
Role within the commitment: Piaggio Aerospace is one of the project End Users (Aeronautics Industry): as such it will provide requirements and further applications that could be developed with the Consortium Materials. Piaggio will assist in the compounds selection, provide Fraunhofer with specific corrosion requirements on business jet size aircraft, and will assess that the developed materials performance fits the selected applications desired improvements.

Blackshape Aircrafts

Name of the organisation: Blackshape Aircrafts Country: Italy Entity profile: Private sector - SME
Role within the commitment: Blackshape Aircrafts is one of the project End Users (Aeronautics Industry): as such it will provide requirements and further applications that could be developed with the Consortium Materials. Blackshape will support to fulfill the requirements of the aeronautics industry on ultra light jet, light jet and trainer for Syllabus, and will assess that the developed alloys performance fits the selected applications desired improvements.

KU Leuven

Name of the organisation: KU Leuven Country: Belgium Entity profile: Academia
Role within the commitment: KUL will collaborate on the balance problem studies and will lead the rare earth recovery research with the solvometallurgical and ionometallurgical processes.
KUL will also contribute to the final compounding selection.
KUL is the Dissemination Manager of the project, promoting that all partners are active on the project Dissemination.

FIDAMC

Name of the organisation: FIDAMC Country: Spain Entity profile: Governmental/public body
Role within the commitment: FIDAMC is going to lead the Work Package on Compression Moulding with CFRP-enhanced materials. As part of the AIRBUS Group, FIDAMC will also be able to provide the input material.
FIDAMC successfully developed a 3D Printer of own design to serve the Aerospace Industry and will be supporting Smart Lab 3D Industries in its 3D printer design.

COMPOSITE INNOVATION CENTER

Name of the organisation: COMPOSITE INNOVATION CENTER Country: Canada Entity profile: Governmental/public body
Role within the commitment: Composite Innovation Center is one of the world leading organization in the field of Composite materials, both from carbon fiber and vegetal-based fibers.
Composite Innovation center has successfully implemented, at lab-scale, recycling processes for CFRP and GFRP.

Existing EU Contribution: Yes

Period to implement the commitment: from 01-04-2014 to 31-12-2018