Considering the growing transport demand and dependence on oil, collective and immediate actions must be taken to abate emissions and mitigate their environmental and health impacts. Very fine particles emissions, and the formation of secondary aerosols through atmospheric processing, are believed to be the pollutant with the greatest public health impact, even if there is a major knowledge gap concerning their atmospheric behaviour (e.g. mechanism/contribution to smog episodes). AEROSOLS is a 36-months timely, ambitious, and interdisciplinary project with aim to define robust and transparent measurement and modelling methodologies to quantify the currently disregarded volatile/semi-volatile (V/S-V) primary and secondary emissions, and their associated risks. Furthermore, technological and legislative monitoring/abating mechanisms will be proposed to control these emissions in order to help improve air quality and public health. This will be achieved by: - quantifying V/S-V emissions formation, abatement, and dynamics within the vehicle system under real-driving-emissions (RDE) testing conditions on roads and in labs utilising innovative instrumentations and methodologies; - characterising secondary aerosol formation and atmospheric evolution mechanisms employing advanced instrumentations (e.g. for particles as small as 1nm), methodologies, and modelling to provide scientific evidence of the precursors’ role; - categorising (‘taxonomising’) and prioritising (assisted by Artificial Intelligence) primary and secondary emissions compounds based on their health impact (by employing in vitro/vivo testing), environmental/social life-cycle-assessment, and risk. Advocacy information will be provided to the stakeholders and legislation/policy makers and proposals will be made for improving the standards/regulations, and consequently the air quality. The support of stakeholders and partners will accelerate the transition to a cleaner and climate-neutral society/economy.

The overall aim of TerraChem is to develop, demonstrate and apply a novel systems approach integrating monitoring, environmental modelling, data management, analytical tools and user guidance to better understand exposure of terrestrial biota across trophic levels (from soil and soil water to plants to primary and secondary consumers to apex species) in Europe to the universe of environmentally-relevant anthropogenic chemicals and their damage on terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem services, with a view to enabling more efficient environmental risk assessment of chemicals in the terrestrial compartment and more effective prevention and mitigation, accelerating achievement of the EU’s zero pollution ambition. TerraChem’s objectives are: (1) To understand routes of exposure to chemicals in wildlife, including routes and extent of trophic transfer, for selected food chains (from soil and soil water to plants, primary and secondary consumers and apex species) in representative terrestrial ecosystems. (2) To model source-to-receptor pathways of selected chemical contaminants for terrestrial ecosystems, and link organism and species effects to damage on genetic and functional diversity and on relevant ecosystem services. (3) To develop tools and guidance for regulatory and practice uptake of TerraChem research and innovation output to optimise current environmental risk assessment of chemicals and improve risk management measures, and thereby reduce chemical damage to terrestrial biodiversity; and (4) To refine the TerraChem conceptual framework, ensure integration of monitoring (under objective 1), modelling (objective 2) and prevention and mitigation (objective 3), ensure coherence with related project, platform, partnership and policy/regulatory initiatives and pertinence for key end-users, and develop a TerraChem Data Management System and TerraChem Dashboard as a One-Stop Shop for data on contaminants in terrestrial biodiversity in Europe.

The central aim of the proposed Source to Sea (NAPSEA) CSA is to support national and local authorities in selecting effective nutrient load reduction measures and to gain political support for the implementation. The consortium partners have been closely involved in applied research and implementation of nutrient reduction measures at local, national and European level. In NAPSEA the current challenges to reduce nutrient pollution, eutrophication and its negative impacts on inland and coastal waters and their ecosystem services will be addressed by an integrated approach addressing nutrient pollution from river source to sea, using the Rhine and Elbe Rivers-North Sea coastal system as case study and integrating three complementary perspectives: governance, nutrient pathways & measures, and ecosystem health. Each of these perspectives provide an essential part of the solution to achieving a healthy ecosystem with measures that are societally acceptable and cost-effective. We will identify options to reach a harmonized approach in nutrient reduction measures across different geographical areas and policy frameworks (governance), select and evaluate nutrient reduction scenarios with an integrated modelling framework from source to sea (nutrient pathways) and define safe ecological boundaries for different types of ecosystems along the continuum from catchment to coast (ecosystem health). NAPSEA will showcase the best practices and consider obstacles on the implementation of socially acceptable, sustainable and effective measures for several local case studies within this geographical scope, also taking into account effects of climate change. These case studies accommodate the variability in potential threats of eutrophication as well as feasibility, effectiveness and implementation of potential measures to represent different ecosystem types, with varying eutrophication symptoms, and address different socio-economic and governance scales from local to European level.

PHISHES aims to bridge the missing link between data on soil health and actions for the safeguard of soils. This missing link entails predictive capability in terms of the consequences of actions on the provision of soil functions and associated ecosystem services, taking into account soil use, soil contamination and various drivers such as climate change. Hence the primary scientific question addressed in PHISHES is: “How do soil use and soil contamination influence soil functions and associated ecosystem services, in the presence of major drivers such as climate change, and how can we predict the impacts of mitigation and adaptation measures?”. While most research teams address this question in a qualitative / semi-quantitative fashion, using, e.g., multicriteria analysis and indicators of soil health, the ambition of PHISHES is to provide quantitative predictive capability via a PHISHES Digital Platform. To achieve this, PHISHES will build upon several pre-existing integrated simulation tools; in particular the MIKE SHE model that provides a flexible framework for integrated hydrologic modelling and the DAISY model, a well-tested mechanistic agro-ecological model of the soil-plant-atmosphere system. The efficient coupling between such models will significantly enhance the ability to assess the impact of changes in land use on soil ecosystem services. It will serve to assess the influence of various actions on soil services; i.e., sustainable agricultural practices (e.g., hedge rows to retain moisture and reduce erosion; no-till agriculture, crop rotation, ...), of land restoration / remediation solutions (e.g., nature-based solutions), pollution prevention solutions, etc. The results of the scenario simulations will be tranlated into recommendations regarding policies aimed at preserving soil health and promoting soil functions and associated ecostem services. The PHISHES consortium brings together competencies from soil science to hydrology and policy making.

Supermarkets comprise various technical disciplines: buildings, heating-, cooling- and ventilations systems. Over one million supermarkets across Europe require ca. 4% of the total electricity. New integrated technologies for more efficient supermarkets are now available and efficiency improvements up to 30% have already been demonstrated. These heating and cooling technologies offer in the mid-term both environmental and economic benefits. The uptake of such efficient solutions is mainly hindered by non-technological market barriers. SuperSmart tackles different barrier categories, both short-term (awareness and knowledge) and long-term (organizational, political, social), even though an immediate impact on the sector will be expected to come already from the removal of the short-term hindrances. The purpose of the SuperSmart hub is to establish a knowledge transfer and promotion platform devoted to the supermarket sector to educate/train and crosslink stakeholders of various backgrounds in such a way that the uptake of energy-efficient heating and cooling solutions is made possible. Specific objectives pursued by the hub for the supermarket sector contain: - Reduce the environmental impact and primary energy demand - Support the introduction of a new EU Ecolabel for Supermarkets - Determine and remove challenges hindering the implementation of eco-energy supermarkets - Raise the expertise level of the different decision makers (non –technical and tech. staff) related to energy usage of equipment and the benefit of integrated systems. Encourage to supply energy (heating&cooling) to nearby business units or local grids. - Conduct direct communication among R&D organizations, suppliers, end users and governmental bodies on potential legislative initiatives Active participation at 10 conferences & fairs and 5 dedicated workshops will disseminate the information beside trainings, and the online end-user expert panels, manufacture panels and innovation panels.