About the project
NextGen aims to boost sustainability and bring new market dynamics throughout the water cycle at the 10 demo cases and beyond. Three key areas of action are foreseen:
The project will asses, design and demonstrate a wide range of water-embedded resources, including:
Water
Itself with reuse at multiple scales supported by nature-based storage, optimal management strategies, advanced treatment technologies, engineered ecosystems and compact/mobile/scalable systems
Energy
Combined water-energy management, treatment plants as energy factories, water-enabled heat transfer, storage and recovery for allied industries and commercial sectors;
Materials
Such as nutrient mining and reuse, manufacturing new products from waste streams, regenerating and repurposing membranes to reduce water reuse costs, and producing activated carbon from sludge to minimise costs of micro-pollutant removal
An integral part of deploying NextGen solutions will be to define and cultivate the framework conditions for success:
Involving and engaging citizens and other stakeholders
to give feedback on technology development, increase collective learning and shape solutions and behavioural change using communities of practice and living labs. Serious gaming and augmented reality will be immersive tools to explore the circular economy and behaviour change.
Addressing social and governance challenges
to ensure long-term adoption and support for circular economy solutions. This includes social acceptability testing, policy and regulation support and development of a European Roadmap for Water in Circular Economy
Last but not least, NextGen will explore new business models and support market creation with three key initiatives:
A thorough analysis, profiling and sharing of business models and services for water solutions in the circular economy
An online marketplace allowing users to explore NextGen showcases and demo case technologies
Business and marketing support to exploit the extensive new opportunities revealed by adopting a circular economy approach