This feasibility report aims to create a solid background for Savings Groups programming in Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands where partner organisations of the LETS SAVEE1 project are based. This Erasmus+ funded project aims at exploring the potential of saving groups in the European countries’ context, by improving entrepreneurial skills and access to financial services and social networks of diverse target groups. This particular report provides the partner organisation as well as other interested implementing organisations with a better understanding of how the different contexts influences the setting up and/or scale up of saving groups. This report is set up as follows: The market potential is based on literature of societal developments and how they can be linked to the emergence of saving groups in the respective countries and what kind of target groups have potential for benefitting the services offered by savings groups. By mapping partner organisations, the feasibility study identifies present and potential partners and stakeholders which could play an essential role reaching out to target groups. Then, the study will inform partner organisations and other implementers about the legal framework in each country that allows them to set up Savings Groups accordingly and identify issues that might need advocacy actions. Finally, this report provides a mapping of risk factors and ways to mitigate risks for savings groups members that were applicable for all partner organizations.
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Energy efficiency has gained a lot of prominence in recent debates on urban sustainability and housing policy due to its potential consequences for climate change. At the local, national and also international level, there are numerous initiatives to promote energy savings and the use of renewable energy to reduce the environmental burden. There is a lot of literature on energy saving and other forms of energy efficiency in housing. However, how to bring this forward in the management of individual housing organisations is not often internationally explored. An international research project has been carried out to find the answers on management questions of housing organisations regarding energy efficiency. Eleven countries have been included in this study: Germany, the United Kingdom (more specifically: England), France, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Austria and Canada. The state of the art of energy efficiency in the housing management of non-profit housing organisations and the embedding of energy efficiency to improve the quality and performance of housing in management practices have been investigated, with a focus on how policy ambitions about energy efficiency are brought forward in investment decisions at the estate level. This paper presents the conclusions of the research
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Energiebeheer gericht aanpakken, Het analyseren van doelstellingen, resultaten en impacts van energie- en broeikasgasbeheersprogramma’s in bedrijven (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands): De wereldwijde uitstoot van broeikasgassen moet drastisch worden teruggebracht om de mondiale stijging van de temperatuur tot het relatief veilige niveau van maximaal 2 graden Celsius te beperken. In de komende decennia zal de verbetering van de energie-efficiëntie de belangrijkste strategie zijn voor het verminderen van de energiegerelateerde uitstoot van broeikasgassen. Hoewel er een enorm potentieel is voor verbetering van de energie-efficiëntie, wordt een groot deel daarvan nog niet benut. Dit wordt veroorzaakt door diverse investeringsbarrières die de invoering van maatregelen voor energie-efficiëntie verbetering verhinderen. De invoering van energiemanagement wordt vaak beschouwd als een manier om dergelijke barrières voor energiebesparing te overwinnen. De invoering van energiemanagement in bedrijven kan worden gestimuleerd door de introductie van programma's voor energie-efficiëntie verbetering en vermindering van de uitstoot van broeikasgassen. Deze programma's zijn vaak een combinatie van verschillende elementen zoals verplichtingen voor energiemanagement; (ambitieuze) doelstellingen voor energiebesparing of beperking van de uitstoot van broeikasgassen; de beschikbaarheid van regelingen voor stimulering, ondersteuning en naleving; en andere verplichtingen, zoals openbare rapportages, certificering en verificatie. Tot nu toe is er echter beperkt inzicht in het proces van het formuleren van ambitieuze doelstellingen voor energie-efficiëntie verbetering of het terugdringen van de uitstoot van broeikasgassen binnen deze programma's, in de gevolgen van de invoering van dergelijke programma's op de verbetering van het energiemanagement, en in de impact van deze programma's op energiebesparing of de vermindering van de uitstoot van broeikasgassen. De centrale onderzoeksvraag van dit proefschrift is als volgt geformuleerd: "Wat is de impact van energie- en broeikasgasmanagement programma’s op het verbeteren van het energiemanagement in de praktijk, het versnellen van de energieefficiëntie verbetering en het beperken van de uitstoot van broeikasgassen in bedrijven?".
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Due to the existing pressure for a more rational use of the water, many public managers and industries have to re-think/adapt their processes towards a more circular approach. Such pressure is even more critical in the Rio Doce region, Minas Gerais, due to the large environmental accident occurred in 2015. Cenibra (pulp mill) is an example of such industries due to the fact that it is situated in the river basin and that it has a water demanding process. The current proposal is meant as an academic and engineering study to propose possible solutions to decrease the total water consumption of the mill and, thus, decrease the total stress on the Rio Doce basin. The work will be divided in three working packages, namely: (i) evaluation (modelling) of the mill process and water balance (ii) application and operation of a pilot scale wastewater treatment plant (iii) analysis of the impacts caused by the improvement of the process. The second work package will also be conducted (in parallel) with a lab scale setup in The Netherlands to allow fast adjustments and broaden evaluation of the setup/process performance. The actions will focus on reducing the mill total water consumption in 20%.
Membrane downstream processing (DSP) offers many opportunities to make process water purification, food supplement concentration and fatty acid hydrogenations more sustainable. Zuyd University of Applied Sciences (ZUYD)/Center of Expertise (CoE) CHemelot Innovation and Learning Labs (CHILL) and Utrecht University of Applied Sciences (HU)/ Utrecht Science Park Innovation Lab (I-Lab) will extend their current field labs with (reactor-)membrane set-ups to assist small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with implementation and dissemination of membrane DSP. Experimental and theoretical scale-up will quantify the membrane DSP contribution to the transition of the chemical industry to become climate neutral. The MEM4CHEM consortium spans the chemical and high tech equipment (HTE) sectors and covers all aspects related to hardware, i.e. reactors, membranes and gas/liquid streams, to implement sustainable innovations for chemical end users. The membrane DSP field labs will be disseminated to extend the research network. In MEM4CHEM the overarching question: How can we implement (reactor-)membrane DSP set-ups in chemical process innovation and disseminate their advantages? and research question: How far can energy/material savings be increased in chemical processes by the use of membrane DSP? will be answered by: i) extending field labs with modular plug-and-play (reactor-)membrane set-ups tailored for the chemical process industry. ii) establishing guidelines for further optimization/upscaling. iii) quantifying energy and material savings using membrane DSP. iv) speeding up industrial implementation of membrane DSP by dissemination, research network expansion, integration of membrane knowledge in education and establishing young professionals as knowledgeable ambassadors. SMEs will be supported by: a) dissemination of the advantages of membrane DSP high tech equipment to facilitate implementation. b) the possibility for SME end users to quantify energy- and material savings in accessible field labs.
Aerogel fibers consist of up to 99.9% of air which leads to outstanding insulation proper-ties for e.g. house construction. The simple use of aerogel fibers as wallpaper could lead to 25% energy savings. According to calculations of Advanced Manufacturing Office, energy savings of 1% saves 7500 million gallons of gasoline every year in the USA which equals, depending on the oil price, more than 18 billon USD. In this KIEM project, the cellulose purity needed to be able to spin cellulose into a fila-ment for aerogel production will be determined. Cellulose is the most abundant polymer on the planet. In principle, cellulose-based aerogels could replace petroleum-based and partly toxic polystyrene which is currently used for insulation purposes and which leads to toxic waste. The cellulosic starting material is generated via the “Beta process” as developed by a company called DSD. The “Beta process” offers an efficient way of generating ethanol from sugar beets. The by-product of that process contains cellulose, pectines and hemi-cellulose. To be able to use this mixture for wet spinning, this mixture needs to be puri-fied. Researchers and students from Zuyd University of Applied Sciences will, in collabora-tion with DSD, pursue the purification of the waste stream material in the labs of the Centre of Expertise CHILL. Next, the obtained cellulose grades will be processed as spinning dope in a wet spinning process on lab scale with up to 60 ml per batch at AMI-BM. The results will be used as feedback for the purification process. Several possible partners such as DSD, ACRRES (Application Center for Renewable Resources), Technoforce (extraction), Greenfields (fermentation) and VAM (washing in-stallations) show high interest for the up-scaling of the process and for the validation and implementation in the built environment, showing the feasibility a follow-up project.
