EU-wide Advantages and Opportunities for the Topic “Environmental impacts from the production of agricultural crops for bio-based industrial systems” (HORIZON-CL6-2025-01-ZEROPOLLUTION-02)

1. Strategic Overview

The call is a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) with an inherently European mandate: map, assess and harmonise knowledge on environmental impacts of primary agricultural biomass used for non-food, non-energy bio-based industries. Working at EU scale multiplies the value of the results by covering the full diversity of EU pedo-climatic zones, policy frameworks and market demand, creating a single reference baseline for industry, regulators and farmers.

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2. Single Market Access (450+ million consumers & buyers)

• Harmonised data on crop sustainability will ease cross-border trade of certified bio-based feedstocks, cutting transaction costs and time-to-market for SMEs.

• EU sustainability benchmarks produced by the project can feed directly into Green Public Procurement (GPP) rules, opening public markets in all Member States for compliant bio-based products.

• Common metrics facilitate EU ecolabels and enable companies to meet the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)—a prerequisite for large retailers sourcing bio-based products EU-wide.

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3. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• The CSA format rewards multinational consortia, unlocking complementary expertise (e.g. Nordic LCA specialists, Mediterranean agronomists, Central-Eastern soil scientists).

• Joint EU databases on crop volumes, land types and practices reduce duplication of national studies and create an open resource for researchers, startups and policymakers.

• Systematic exchanges with Latin America & Caribbean partners extend supply-chain transparency beyond EU borders, de-risking imports and supporting the EU’s Global Gateway trade agenda.

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4. Alignment with Key EU Policies and Strategies

• European Green Deal & Zero Pollution Action Plan: core objective of quantifying and lowering air/water/soil pollution from agriculture.

• Industrial Carbon Management Strategy & Climate Law: project delivers robust data on biogenic carbon flows and temporary removals—vital input for carbon‐accounting rules and upcoming Carbon Removals Certification Framework (CRCF).

• Circular Bioeconomy Strategy & CBE Joint Undertaking: evidence base for ‘safe-and-sustainable-by-design’ bio-based chemicals and materials.

• Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2023: best-practice catalogues can be integrated into national CAP Strategic Plans as eco-schemes.

• Biodiversity Strategy & Nature Restoration Regulation: indicators on ecosystem services support targets for restoring 20 % of EU land by 2030.

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5. Regulatory Harmonisation Benefits

• Applying the EU Environmental Footprint (Recommendation 2021/2279) ensures a single LCA methodology across 30+ countries, boosting comparability of results and lowering certification costs.

• Project outputs can underpin EU taxonomy technical screening criteria for bio-based manufacture, facilitating access to sustainable finance.

• Contributes to EU-wide standards (CEN, ISO) on sustainable biomass sourcing, reducing market fragmentation and legal uncertainty for investors.

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6. Access to EU Innovation Ecosystem

• Direct links with Horizon Europe clusters, the Circular Bio-based Europe JU (CBE), EIT Climate-KIC/Food, and the Bio-based Industries Consortium provide fast pathways for demonstration projects.

• Integration with Copernicus and INSPIRE spatial data enables high-resolution land-use assessments at continental scale.

• Collaboration opportunities with Joint Research Centre (JRC), Eurostat, and national research infrastructures (AnaEE, ICOS) enhance data robustness and policy uptake.

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7. Funding Synergies and Leverage Potential

• LIFE Programme can fund pilot remediation of hotspots identified by the CSA.

• EIC Pathfinder/Transition can pick up breakthrough cultivation or monitoring technologies surfaced by the project.

• Interreg & ERDF can support regional adoption of best practices, especially in border areas sharing river basins.

• CAP Eco-schemes, Horizon Europe Missions (Soil, Oceans), Digital Europe for data spaces, and InvestEU for scaling industrial facilities—all align with and amplify CSA outputs.

• Cumulative effect: every €1 of CSA lump-sum can crowd-in €4-€6 from complementary EU instruments.

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8. EU-wide Scale & Impact Opportunities

1. Create the first Pan-European Observatory on Industrial Crop Sustainability, hosting harmonised datasets for >40 crops across all NUTS-2 regions.

2. Develop a Geo-referenced Decision Support Tool for farmers and industry, integrating climate scenarios, biodiversity indices and nutrient-loss models.

3. Issue EU Best-Practice Guidelines endorsed by major farming and industry associations, enabling rapid adoption across 6 million EU farms.

4. Deliver science-based input to ongoing EU standardisation (CEN/TC 411 ‘Bio-based products’), shaping global norms.

5. Enable companies to meet forthcoming Digital Product Passport (DPP) requirements with traceable environmental data, facilitating EU-wide market entry.

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9. Actionable Recommendations for Proposers

• Form a consortium covering all major agro-climatic zones and at least 12 Member/Associated States to maximise representativeness.

• Embed policy-liaison partners (e.g. Copa-Cogeca, EuropaBio, CBE-JU SRG) to guarantee regulatory uptake.

• Allocate resources to build an open data platform interoperable with EU Data Spaces and INSPIRE standards.

• Plan for twin pilots inside and outside the EU (e.g. Spain & Brazil) to address import supply chains and ILUC effects.

• Exploit the CSA networking mandate to set up a permanent European Stakeholder Forum that survives beyond the project, ensuring long-term impact.

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Bottom Line

Leveraging the Union’s integrated market, harmonised regulatory environment and rich innovation ecosystem, this CSA can set EU-wide benchmarks for sustainable industrial crop production, unlock cross-border supply chains, and position Europe as the global standard-setter for bio-based circular economies—benefits that no single Member State initiative could match.