Each year several million tons of residual biomass from the management of rural landscapes and urban greens in NWE are wasted. On the other hand, there is a growing market for sustainable and decentralised products such as active coal, used in sewage water technologies to clean water polluted with complex chemical substances or antibiotics.

There are many sources for waste biomasses that are not being used by now. Experts say that 34 mio t of biomass are wasted in Northwest Europe. If we would only use 10% of this potential, we could probably avoid 3 Million tons of CO2 emissions. We could produce 11 Million tons of biochar from these sources for a multitude of purposes. With this we could create new income sources and new employment.

Since 2008 the PROGRASS network has developed a holistic, interdisciplinary approach for an “Integrated Biomass and Carbon Management”. It combines state of the art technology with sustainable regional development to support the circular carbon economy.

PROGRASS is a truly European Research and Development network. The scientific partners have largely contributed to substantial research in the field while the different development and innovation stages have been directly transferred into large scale and small-scale projects in many European regions.