The main objective of ARGONAUT is to develop an effective and easily accessible AI digital tool that accurately calculates the environmental and climate impact from bio-based products across the entire value chain (from cradle to grave) using language models from global literature based on LCA principles and allows for easy and secure tracking through a digital passport based on blockchain technology. This tool will also include a decision support tool that uses this data to map out different alternatives for the value chain and their environmental impact thereby facilitating better and more sustainable decision making. ARGONAUT will contribute to the integration of key emerging digital technologies (AI and blockchain) and an environmental assessment methodology (LCA) to create a reliable tool able to assist small and medium-sized producers to navigate the complex bio-product landscape with enough relevant information, security guarantees regarding the privacy of their data and in a user-friendly way capable of closing knowledge gaps and thereby of reaching to a wider range of producers. ARGONAUT will contribute to the implementation of the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and allow for an accurate depiction of the environmental impact of such bio-based products thereby supporting the development of more sustainable value chains and the transition to a circular bioeconomy across the EU.

ALTHEA aims at putting peri-urban areas at the core of the transition to climate neutrality following the successfully tested Transition Super Living Lab approach, as dynamic testing grounds for systemic change, that provides a new cross sectorial model to support peri-urban areas on achieving the change towards climate neutrality through innovation and digitalisation. ALTHEA will help Mission Cities to develop and implement cross sectorial innovative solutions aligned with their Climate City Contracts (CCC) and build up strategies and Local Green Deals that integrate the urban and peri-urban area in a symbiotic environment having mutual benefits. Through a multi-level governance approach, ALTHEA will empower five TSLLs (Antwerp-Rotterdam, Milan metropolitan region, Alicante- Elche Functional Area, Epirus-Ioannina region and Lisbon metropolitan region) and three replicator sites (Greater Copenhagen, Gdynia and Aachen) to implement 59 targeted interventions addressing four key innovation axes: sustainable mobility, decarbonized energy systems, zero-pollution industry, and cross-sectoral governance. To support this systemic transformation, ALTHEA will design and develop 21 cutting-edge and data-driven innovations, forming the ALTHEA Innovations Toolkit. These solutions will optimize transportation networks, decarbonize energy grids, enhance governance structures, and improve industrial sustainability. By bridging governance gaps, strengthening institutional capacity, and leveraging data-driven solutions, ALTHEA will position peri-urban areas as key drivers in Europe’s climate-neutral future. ALTHEA methodology and impact will be evaluated in different functional peri-urban areas: i) Cross country, ii) cross region iii) cross city and iv) city and peri-urban area, maximising its replicability potential.

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 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, Croatia, 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.