Industrial Symbiosis: A Transformative Approach for Sustainable Industry

The article addresses the importance of structured business agreements in industrial symbiosis (IS), categorizing IS relationships by engagement level and outlining key considerations for agreements including ownership, responsibilities, liabilities, risk management, governance, contractual terms, and adaptability based on the CORALIS project.

This study explores the circular economy's waste-to-resource concept and analyzes startups impacting it. Key trends include waste upcycling, IoT-optimized waste management, AI-powered sorting, and blockchain for traceability. Circular economy startups are prominent in Western Europe, with growing activity in the US and Asia, particularly China and India.

European industries use digital tools for energy efficiency, as per a report with nine case studies, highlighting big data, AI for maintenance, demand response programs, collaboration importance, addressing high costs, and skill gaps, offering guidance for integrating technologies and fostering innovation for sustainability.

The IEA's Global Conference on Energy and AI highlighted the reciprocal relationship between both fields, focusing on AI's role in optimizing energy use and enhancing renewable energy adoption, while also acknowledging AI's growing energy demands. Key discussions addressed electricity consumption by data centers, advancements in battery tech, smart grid optimization, predictive capabilities for natural disasters, and international perspectives from companies and governments on AI-driven energy strategies. The IEA stressed its commitment to providing actionable data and fostering stakeholder dialogue to align AI with energy system realities, and announced a comprehensive energy-AI report for 2025.

The Agora Industry study outlines direct electrification's potential to fulfill 90% of industry's non-electrified energy demands in Europe by 2035, highlighting a key opportunity for CO2 reduction and progress towards EU climate targets.

The European Commission's strategy for 2024-2029 aims to revitalize Europe's industrial sector, address economic challenges, promote sustainability, advance technological sovereignty, ensure social fairness, and strengthen global partnerships for a resilient, prosperous EU future.

EnerWhizz is a mobile quiz game designed to teach players about energy efficiency and renewable energy in an engaging and competitive format, offering rewards, multilingual support, and opportunities for global competition.

The EU's industrial carbon management strategy aims for climate neutrality by 2050, targeting innovations in carbon capture and utilization (CCU), carbon capture and storage (CCS), and CO2 transport through a 19,000 km network. This transformative approach, fostering a carbon value chain, could generate €45-€100 billion and create 75,000-170,000 jobs by 2030, while positioning the EU as a global leader in carbon management technologies. The strategy emphasizes investment, R&D, public engagement, international cooperation, and regulatory development.

Studies outline scenarios for a 100% renewable energy system by 2050, emphasizing electrification, solar and wind dominance, job creation, grid flexibility, energy storage importance, green hydrogen's role, and socio-economic benefits including health and employment gains.