EUROPEAN COMPOST NETWORK
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ECN E-BULLETIN No. 08_2021
15 July 2021
EU Commission I 12 July - 9 August 2021

Public consultation on Bioeconomy Strategy opened

The Bioeconomy Strategy sets out an action plan with 14 concrete actions with the aim of deploying a sustainable and circular bioeconomy across the EU.

The bioeconomy has the potential to play an essential role in this transition by ensuring healthy ecosystems and tackling climate- and bio-security related challenges, while providing the resources meeting the needs of society. Sourcing from renewable biological resources, focussing on the principle of cascading use of biomass for high resource efficiency and including residuals and biological waste streams as part of the circular economy, the bioeconomy can provide food, feed, bio-based products, clean water and energy, thus replacing and reducing dependence on fossil resources.
In November 2019, the Council of the European Union adopted conclusions on the Bioeconomy Strategy, stressing that a sustainable European bioeconomy should be one of the major components for the implementation of the European Green Deal. The conclusions called upon the incoming Commission to deliver a progress report and if appropriate with update of the action plan and/or the Strategy at the latest by 2022.
The Report will highlight the bioeconomy’s holistic and systemic approach to managing biological resources within the EU’s economy, while having sustainability and circularity at its core. The report will take a particular look at the essential added value of this approach within the context of the Green Deal: going beyond and bridging important sectoral and cross-cutting policies and actors (e.g. agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture, industry, energy, waste management, environment and climate), and using science and knowledge to address trade-offs between different targets (e.g. climate and biodiversity) and competing uses of biomass, land and aquatic resources.
The public consultation is open until 9 August and can be accessed here.
CAP Strategic Plans Regulation I 24-25 June 2021

Compromise agreements on the new agricultural policy regulation reached

Member States have to draft and send their National Strategic Plans on Agriculture to the European Commission by 31 December 2021
The political negotiations known as ‘Trilogues’ between the presidents of the Council, European Parliament and European Commission concluded with a compromise agreement on the final text of the regulation at the end of June 2021.
The text of the agreement would have to be confirmed by the European Parliament Plenary in Autumn 2021.
The new CAP introduces a new way of working, where each Member State will draft a national CAP strategic plan describing how the CAP objectives as well as and Green Deal objectives as described in the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies will be achieved.
For the ECN analysis of the agreement and relevant documents, please download the ECN Policy Brief here.
Farm to Fork Strategy I 05 June 2021

The European Parliament postpone the vote on the Resolution

The AGRI Committee asked to postpone the vote on the Farm to Fork Resolution after the Summer, due to the ongoing trilogues on the Common Agricultural Policy.
The Farm to Fork Strategy, published on 20 May 2020, outlines a number of actions to support the transition to a more sustainable food system in the EU. The deadlines for each action are set out in the Annex to the Strategy.
The European Parliament adopted a Draft Report in December 2020 and the MEPs were supposed to vote on it on 28 June but no joint meeting of the AGRI and ENVI Committees took place on that day.
The joint committees are now expected to vote on the adoption of the draft report and the amendments submitted to it in September 2021.
The date for the adoption of the draft report by the European Parliament’s plenary has been provisionally set for 4 October 2021.

EU Carbon Farming Initiative (Action Plan)

The Commission is expected to present a Communication setting out an Action Plan for the EU Carbon Farming Initiative.
The Carbon Farming Initiative would promote a green business model of carbon sequestration in which farming practices that remove CO2 from the atmosphere and thus contribute to Green Deal objectives would be rewarded. This would provide farmers with an additional source of income and could help others to decarbonise the food chain.The Initiative was announced as part of the Farm to Fork Strategy to contribute to ensuring sustainable food production.

0n the Agenda of the EP AGRI Committee
The EU Carbon Farming Initiative was on the agenda of the AGRI Committee of the European Parliament on 15 June 2021. For the discussion the following documents were provided:
Technical Handbook - Setting up and implementing result-based carbon farming mechanisms in the EU: here
Executive Summary - Operationalising an EU carbon farming initiative: here
Annexes Case-studies - Operationalising an EU carbon farming initiative: here
EU Fertilising Products Regulation

New Component Materials Categories for Pyrolysis and Gasification Materials adopted

Following the Commission’s adoption on 7 July, the Delegated Act amending Annexes II, III and IV to Regulation (EU) 2019/1009 for the purpose of adding pyrolysis and gasification materials as a component material category in EU fertilising products will be sent to the European Parliament and Council for scrutiny.
The two institutions will have a two month ‘objection period’ (extendable by two more months) during which they can decide that the measure should be amended.
If one of the institutions objects to the measure it will not enter into force. If no objections are raised, the measure will be published in the Official Journal and become law.
The measure is expected to be published in the Official Journal during the third quarter of 2021.
European Parliament I Renew Group I 20 June 2021

Public hearing on ‘Soil and the European Green Deal’

Commissioner for Environment Virginijus Sinkevičius addressed the upcoming review of the Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection
The Commissioner shared that the Commission will put forward a new EU Soil Strategy after the summer to establish an overarching policy framework.
Ladislav Miko, the former Deputy Director-General of DG SANTE (Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety), noted that soil structure is key for healthy soil, for which natural processes and natural actors are needed.
Mr Miko further emphasised that it is important to find out how much organic matter needs to be left in the soil or replaced by organic fertilisers in the accumulation regime as to not exploit the regime, which would lead to the destruction of soil and of ecosystem services.
The recordings of the hearing are available at this link.
EU Research Project I 24 June 2021

Final conference on SoilCare Project

The Final Conference for the SoilCare project took place as a virtual event on Thursday 24th June 2021. The overall aim of SoilCare is to identify and evaluate promising soil improving cropping systems and agronomic techniques increasing profitability and sustainability across scales in Europe.
The SoilCare project introductory leaflet provides details of the aims and objectives of the project and the partners involved. It is available in 14 different languages.
The aim of the conference was to disseminate the findings of the EU-funded project and incite discussion surrounding the results and policy recommendations.
If you missed the conference, you can find the recordings at this link.
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1-Day Registration is open now!

GrowingMedia2021 Online Industry and Policy Day

On 26 August 2021 an online Industry and Policy Day from 8:30 h until 17:00 h will take place. Due to the restricted amount of present participants, we offer a 1-Day registration for taking part online in the industry and policy-related sessions of the conference.

The day will start with a keynote on 'Biochar as an additive in composting', followed by the session on 'Growing media and sustainable use of resources'. A dedicated 'Peat-related workshop' organised by the International Peatland Society will take place before the lunch break.
The afternoon will start with with the policy-related workshop on the 'EU Fertilising Products Regulation - Opportunities and Challenges to place Growing Media and Soil Improvers on teh Eureopan Market' organised by ECN and Growing Media Europe. We are happy to announce that Mr Jérémy Pinte of DG GROW (European Commission) will be the key speaker on 'Exploring the New Fertilising Product Regulation (FPR) – the case of soil improvers and growing media'. The policy workshop willl end with a panel discussion between the representatives from the industry and the Commission.
Before the conference will be closed with a 'Final summary & conclusions and the award ceremonies' a second session on 'Growing media and sustainable use of resources' giving an overview from abroad will take place in the afternoon.
Programme of the 'GrowingMedia2021 Online Industry and Policy Day' here. Registrattion: here
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Site Visit Tour I 27 August 2021

Vlaco/ECN offers a post-conference tour at IVAREM green composting site at GrowingMedia 2021

For the participants of GrowingMedia2021 Vlaco and ECN offers a site visit tour to the IVAREM composting plant in Lier. We are kindly hosted by Mr Peter Borstlap, SHEQ Manager at IVAREM, the Intercommunal Organisation for Sustainable Waste Management of the Mechelen region.
The IVAREM composting plant treats in average 23.000 tonnes green waste in a 2-step composting process. The green waste is delivered through different collection schemes from municipalities, private companies and civilians (recycling parks). In a first step, shreddered green waste is composted in GICOM-tunnels during a period of 2 weeks. After this first phase, the composting material is moved to the maturation field, where it is operated in a table composting phase (for average 5 months). The composted material is screened at 20 mm and sold in bulk and in 40L bags. There is a Vlaco-Quality Assurance for the compost, resulting in a Vlaco-quality label and an ECN-QAS Conformity label.
There are several different markets for the compost: landscaping, public green, private gardens, organic fertiliser/soil improver producers, agriculture and horticulture.
Weblink: https://www.ivarem.be/compost
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ECN Annual Meeting I 22 September 2021 I Vienna

ECN will visit the composting plant Lobau

We very much appreciate that KBVÖ has invited us to Vienna and has offered a fantastic social and technical programme for selsbrating the ECN Annual meeting 2021. Besides visiting the 7th International Practitioners Day for compsoting, the Departement of Waste Management of the City Of Vienna (MA48) has offered us to visit their composting plant Lobau in the course of the Annual Meeting.
If you haven't registered so far, please get in contact with the ECN office: info@compostntework.info
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23/09/2021 Austria I KBVÖ

7th International Practitioners Day for Composting

The 7th International Practitioners Day for Composting will take place on 23rd September 2021 in Langenlois/NÖ (AT) organised by the Austrian Compost & Biogas Associaton (KBVÖ).
The full programme in englsich is available here.
Please register here.
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ECN-QAS Trade Mark No 011007168
Trade mark for certified quality assurance
organisations, compost and digestate products
according
to ECN-QAS
Website: www.ecn-qas.eu

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