As considered in the “Europe 2020 Strategy”, the European Union is facing major challenges such us the economic crisis, sustainability and the competition with emerging economies.
In this context, TOP-REF contributes to a smart and sustainable growth while promoting a more efficient, greener and competitive economy based on knowledge and innovation.
In addition, the improvement of resource efficiency in process industries is a key action to accomplish three main EU concerns:
- The productivity and competitiveness of European Industry for securing growth and jobs.
- The efficient use of resources to deal with the climate change and other environmental issues.
- The improvement of resource efficiency to secure Europe’s supply of raw materials for making the EU economy more resilient to future increases of global energy and commodity prices.
TOP-REF aims to develop and validate specific indicators, methodologies and non-invasive Monitoring and control system (M&CS) devoted to the improvement of resource efficiency in energy intensive industrial sectors.
These methodologies and tools, will allow the consecution of the following TOP-REF final impacts:
- To improve energy and resources efficiency by 20% compared with the current levels.
- To pave the way for achieving the SPIRE2030 objective of reducing non-renewable, primary raw material intensity up to 20% and fossil energy intensity up to 30%, both compared with current levels.
- To increase the reusability and recycling of materials between 30%, depending on the sector.
- Reduce production costs up to 15 % compared with the current levels.
- A significant reduction of the environmental impacts (CO2 emissions, water footprint, pollutants, hazardous emissions, etc.).
