Within WP5, Life Cycle Cost analysis (LCC) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the products, obtained as a result of the novel processes and technologies developed throughout the PROMICON project, were performed. For these assessments, several scenarios to produce in a more efficient, sustainable and viable way five products (PHA, EPS, PHB, pigments and hydrogen), currently in high demand by the industry, were considered in order to determine the economic and environmental viability of the implementation of these new technologies on a large scale. The PROMICON groundbreaking technologies are still in their early stages, offering large potential for the future. As a result, gathering large-scale data on various processes – such as energy consumption, volumes, times, and equipment flows – remains a challenge. However, this provides an incredible opportunity to refine and optimise these processes. While it is challenging to produce a precise LCC and LCA that reflects what would occur at an industrial scale, the progress made within WP5 lays a strong foundation for future advancements.
A Social Life Cycle Assessment was carried out to analyse the social performance of the production of four bio-based products for both food and non-food applications (i.e., additives, bioplastics, pigments and hydrogen) by means of novel bio-based routes based on microbiomes. The results pointed out that all of them showed good social performance, even though the sole production of bioplastics and hydrogen had the best overall social performance. It was mainly due to the high acceptance level for consumers and the better performance in terms of public commitment to sustainability issues for society. Indeed, the non-food products (i.e., bioplastics and hydrogen) seemed to have higher acceptability from consumers and higher interest in terms of regulation and policy development. More efforts should be made to develop specific regulation and policy. Also, implementation at full-scale should be boosted to cover the technological development gap.
To develop an effective and tailored Exploitation and Business Strategy Plan for the PROMICON project, the Key Exploitable Results (KERs) of the project – reported in the Figure below – were identified and for each of them, the Intellectual Property protection tools were defined. Based on the identified KERs, which are linked to the production of biopolymers, butanol and hydrogen, a market and competitor analysis was carried out to identify risks and opportunities for the exploitation of the PROMICON solutions. Moreover, to maximise the impact of the innovations developed during the project, key stakeholders and end-users were engaged and invited to three Innovation Workshops to provide feedback to further develop PROMICON solutions and ensure they are fit-for-purpose. The outputs of the market analysis and the Innovation Workshops helped refine the business strategies and exploitation roadmaps of the PROMICON solutions to boost their market uptake beyond the project.
