Building Lasting Symbiotic Relationships: Business Agreements in Industrial Symbiosis

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.

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.

The Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership, with $30 billion from Microsoft, BlackRock, and others, aims to build AI data centers and related energy infrastructure, addressing the high energy demands of AI. Other initiatives like Google's AI Opportunity Fund and IndiaAI Mission support AI infrastructure development, focusing on sustainability and international cooperation to ensure global economic and technological advancement.

Catalytic methane decomposition (CMD) offers CO2-free hydrogen production using transition metal catalysts, overcoming challenges of catalyst deactivation through strategies like bimetallic catalysts and reactor design innovations. Economically competitive, it potentially enables carbon-negative hydrogen via biogas, with valuable carbon byproducts.