New Horizon Europe Project SOILUTIONS Launched: Unlocking the Potential of Bio-Waste Soil Improvers Can soil improvers made from biowaste pave the way for a more sustainable future? The new European Horizon project, SOILUTIONS intends to remove the barriers to market access for these products. Over the next three years, this ambitious initiative aims to revolutionise soil health and reduce the use of mineral fertilisers. The urgency related to soil health has risen to the forefront of European and global environmental policies. The European Commission has set its sights on the EU Mission Soil Health and Food to ensure that 75% of soils attain robust health by 2030, and ultimately achieving the 100% mark by 2050. The new Soil Health Law proposal, planned to be adopted by the European Commission in summer 2023, specifies conditions for healthy soil, determines options for monitoring it, and lays out rules to sustainable soil use and restoration. Nonetheless, the limited range of current commercial technologies, safety concerns, low product efficacy, and insufficient market awareness are hindering the widespread adoption of bio-waste soil improvers. The SOILUTIONS project positions itself within this challenging context with the aim to further develop four bio-based valorisation routes, namely, hygenised animal blood, frass, and two chemical compounds (N-struvite and K-struvite) into market-ready soil improvers. In turn, this would decrease the reliance on mineral fertilisers considerably. Such a paradigm shift in soil management practices holds huge potential to contribute to the Farm-to-Fork targets, particularly the ambitious goal of reducing mineral fertiliser usage by 20% by 2030. By taking a multi-actor and co-creative approach, exemplified in the setting up of three Living Labs in Flanders (Belgium), Valencia (Spain), and Murcia (Spain), SOILUTIONS will ensure the development of tailored bio-waste soil improvers and efficiently promote their market access. The project aims to achieve this by engaging a broad array of key value chain actors (land managers, city councils, and farmers) and over 40 key EU organisations including soil companies, suppliers, end-users, and policy makers. Thanks to its systemic approach – addressing technical, economic and multi-actors aspects – SOILUTIONS will trigger a positive environmental ripple effect, fostering the market uptake of innovative and effective bio-waste soil improvers and ultimately catalysing soil recovery and circularity of processes, reducing both synthetic chemicals usage and landfilling/incineration of bio-waste. As a project partner, the CSCP will be involved in and coordinate the multi-stakeholder engagement process. It will be responsible for the establishment and coordination of the three SOILUTIONS Living Labs. The CSCP will also contribute to the project communication and dissemination activities, fostering knowledge exchange and ensuring the creation of synergies among the three living labs. The SOILUTIONS project is funded under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research programme and will run for three years (2023-2026), carried out by a consortium of 12 European partners. For further questions, please contact Livia El-Khawad. Photo by Gabriel Jimenez on Unsplash