Retrofitting of (bio)refineries industrial plants towards higher-value bio-based products

Successful projects will:

• Deliver a full-scale biorefinery based on the retrofit of an existing industrial plant, producing bio-based products of higher value than in the original configuration.

• Deploy a competitive, replicable regional/local business model covering all value-chain segments, centred on the reconfigured site.

• Achieve measurable improvements in overall sustainability and circularity compared to the old plant configuration.

• Generate increased societal value through direct and indirect employment growth at local and regional levels, including the maintenance of jobs in at-risk facilities.

• Contribute to the EU Bioeconomy Strategy, Circular Economy Action Plan, Zero Pollution ambitions under the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, Zero Pollution Action Plan and the EU Industrial Strategy.

• Target facilities: existing industrial plants (redundant, under-exploited or obsolete) suitable for conversion to biorefineries; greenfield developments are explicitly out of scope.

• Technology: innovative biomass conversion processes yielding products of higher value than those from the original configuration.

• TRL targets: achieve end-TRL 8 for bio-based chemicals/materials production and TRL 6 or above for final end-products in market-relevant applications.

• Resource efficiency: integrated cascade valorisation of residual streams; exclusion of food/feed ingredient production.

• Multi-Actor Approach: full value-chain setup covering biomass supply, logistics and stakeholder engagement to build or enhance a local/regional ecosystem around the biorefinery.

• Workforce development: creation and practical testing of training programmes for upskilling/reskilling the biorefinery and associated ecosystem workforce.

• SSbD framework: inclusion of a dedicated work package/task to apply the SSbD framework and to generate actionable recommendations, thresholds, and data-gap identification (safety, environmental, socio-economic).

• Complementarity: ensure synergy with relevant Horizon 2020/Horizon Europe (Cluster 6 and others) and BBI JU/CBE JU flagship projects (e.g., FIRST2RUN, RESOLUTE, SUSTAINEXT, VIOBOND, TERRIFIC, CIRCLE).