In the face of the global challenge of climate change, materials, and circular economy policies emerge as vital players, deserving a central role in IAMs. The integration of these elements into the models
becomes our pathway toward a more effective and holistic low carbon future.
The 16th Annual Meeting ofIAMChas been held in Venice from November 14-16. This year’s was co-chaired by CIRCOMOD Co-Principal Investigator Detlef van Vuuren (PBL) and CircEUlar Co-Principal Investigator Volker Krey (IIASA) with several contributions to the session stemming from these two Horizon Europe funded sister projects.
A recent study led by our CircEUlar member Dominik Wiedenhofer conducts a global assessment of material stocks in mobility infrastructure (roads and rail-based systems, including bridges and tunnels), their associated material flows, and embodied greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for 2021.
In the CircEUlar project, we will be assessing the contribution of digitalisation toward net-zero and circular economy targets under different social and economic development assumptions (the ‘Shared Socioeconomic Pathways’ (SSPs) used in IPCC assessments).
From assessing optimal treatment strategies for waste collection and management systems, and forecasting GHG emissions from waste flows by understanding relationships with demographic and socioeconomic factors, his research includes life cycle analysis of the solid waste management sector from micro to macro scales.
Drilling fluids contain a mineral that is the main ingredient for the world’s most promising cooling paints: barite. Can we recover this mineral from soon-to-be-obsolete fossil wells to cool our houses in a heated world?
How circular is South Africa’s economy? – With this research, we present the first-ever comprehensive analysis of material and energy flows for an extractive economy.
In the next months, CircEUlar project partners will conduct qualitative interviews and a quantitative pilot study to investigate factors influencing circular consumption and circular citizenship. That way, we will gain a deeper understanding of circular consumption and circular citizenship behaviours in different countries.
In a recent study, our partner Technische Universität Berlin (Sustainability Economics of Human Settlements) – TUB looked at 25 million buildings in France, Spain and the Netherlands and tried to estimate the construction year and retrofit need. The overarching goal was to assess if machine learning methods can facilitate the identification of retrofit candidates at scale.
Recent years have seen the rapid increase of micro e-mobility ownership and the launch of public rental schemes across many European cities. However, its long-term impact is dependent on its ability to complement other sustainable modes, and ultimately to displace car use and ownership.