The European Starch Industry Association, Starch Europe, has announced the adoption- and publication of a sector-wide Decarbonisation Roadmap for 2019-2030.
The European starch sector has made a commitment to lowering its greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 1 and 2) by 25 percent per tonne of starch produced, between 2019 and 2030.
The announcement was made on October 11, 2022, at its annual conference, which returned this year to an in-person event.
It follows the publication earlier this year of the results of the most recent sector-wide LCA Study, which showed a 19 percent reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per tonne of starch, between 2009 and 2019.
Regular monitoring, a mid-way state-of-play progress report, and a full and independently conducted LCA study in 2031 were also part of the commitments to ensure that targets were met.
Our vision is ambitious but clear, we know where we are heading, and we are determined to get there. To produce this Roadmap, we have worked together, across the industry, to identify the roads that could lead us there said Christophe Rupp-Dahlem, Starch Europe President.
The European starch producers unanimously agreed, however, that while these goals were clearly within their vision of a more sustainable near future, they would be tough to achieve without significant help, especially in these particularly challenging times.
As an industry, each and every one of us is accustomed to continuously adapting. But we are facing unprecedented challenges and threats today – inflationary energy and agricultural raw material prices, and even threats to our very energy supply – that conspire to make this an even more difficult proposition. We will need the right support and regulatory environment to get us safely where we want to go while retaining our competitiveness, Christophe Rupp-Dahlem added.
As part of its Decarbonisation Roadmap, Starch Europe outlines a number of proposed means to achieve its targets, as well as a series of political and financial measures needed to achieve this ambitious reduction goal.
It was also announced that Starch Europe will be signing the EU Code of Conduct for Responsible Business and Marketing Practices in the coming weeks, to fully codify its commitment to working across the agri-food supply chain to strive for a more sustainable future.
Energy efficiency and biomass
The Roadmap highlights that the sector’s heat requirements “are too great” for its processes to switch to 100 percent electric although some technologies could be developed to allow increased electrification.
These include new types of heat pump technology that use waste heat to produce high temperatures (> 150° C) suitable for industrial drying processes and mechanical vapor recompression (MVR) which reduces the consumption of steam at a site.
The sector, which uses steam at high temperatures (> 180°C), currently relies on the use of gas boilers and high-efficiency cogeneration (CHP) based on fossil gas.
The Roadmap notes that biomass boilers are currently among the best possible technologies for converting gas-based boilers to carbon-free solutions along with biogas, and hydrogen while CHP guarantees a combined production of heat and electricity.
