Sustainability Performance Assessment
On 29th April, the second in a series of webinars organised by the React Cluster took place. React stands for Resource Efficiency and Automation for Circular Transformation. It’s a collaboration of projects from the EU Green Deal Cluster: ALCHIMIA, GRINNER, TUBERS, RECLAIM, CLARUS and WOOD2WOOD projects.
The second episode was entitled “Sustainability Performance Assessment”. The webinar featured Roberto Rocca, Postdoc Researcher at Polimi Manufacturing Group; Fredy Raptopoulos, CTO and Co-Founder at ROBENSO; Federico Rossi, Assistant Professor at the Interdisciplinary Center for Sustainability and Climate at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies; Nikos Panagopoulos, Senior Hardware Engineer at Tech Hive Labs. The session was chaired by Ludovica Miele, Researcher and Management Engineer at Universitat Politècnica de València.
Roberto Rocca presented “The Green Deal Index for Environmental Sustainability Assessment for the Food Industry” as part of the CLARUS project. He introduced a framework for quantifying environmental performance in alignment with the European Green Deal. The final indicator, the Green Deal Index (GDI), is derived through the Green Deal Performance Assessment Methodology, which is based on Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data and a Green Deal Ontology that semantically formalizes the KPI computation for the GDI. He emphasized that the accurate analysis and traceability of sustainability data related to food production and consumption can bring substantial benefits for natural resource management in food manufacturing and significantly enhance sustainability performance and assessment.
Fredy Raptopoulos, Senior Engineer at Robenso, presented “Sustainability Performance Optimisation of Robotic Material Recovery Facility (MRF)” for the RECLAIM project. He showcased the world’s first fully automated, low-cost, AI-powered portable robotic Material Recovery Facility (prMRF), designed to enable decentralised material recovery operations anywhere, including remote locations.
In his presentation, he first highlighted the strategic importance of such technologies for the future of sustainability, and then explained how RECLAIM measures the performance of the prMRF system and applies optimisation techniques to enhance its environmental and operational efficiency.
Federico Rossi, Assistant Professor at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, presented “The Role of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in the ALCHIMIA Project”. His talk emphasized how LCA serves as a decision-support tool within the steel-making industry. He explained that LCA can be used as a baseline assessment, as a means for process optimization, and to compare environmental impacts before and after implementing improvements.
Nikos Panagopoulos, Senior Hardware Engineer at Tech Hive Labs, presented “How and Why to Calculate the Environmental Cost of Reducing Fires in E-Waste Recycling Facilities | The Importance of Life Cycle Analysis in the Context of the GRINNER Project”. His intervention highlighted the often-overlooked sustainability dimension of safety improvements. In particular, he demonstrated how Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) can be used not only to assess the environmental benefits of the solution itself, but also to evaluate the impact of implementing the new technology, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, material toxicity, and recyclability.
Key Takeaways:
- Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a widely adopted methodology across sectors to support informed decision-making, track environmental impacts, and guide continuous improvement efforts.
- Digital tools and structured sustainability frameworks are essential to align industrial practices with broader policy objectives such as the European Green Deal.
- Automation and decentralised systems can significantly enhance sustainability by enabling resource-efficient operations, even in remote or less-developed settings.
- Accurate data analysis and traceability are critical to evaluate sustainability performance and unlock improvements in resource management and production systems.
- Safety-related innovations, often overlooked in sustainability discussions, can carry substantial environmental implications that should be assessed through comprehensive methods like LCA.
- A common trend across initiatives is the integration of AI, environmental metrics, and digital modelling to develop scalable, sector-neutral approaches for sustainability assessment.
To view the full webinar as well as the Q&A at the end of the session, follow this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YNv-sb6uko&ab_channel=CLARUSproject