TECNALIA is the largest centre of applied research and technological development in Spain, a benchmark in Europe and a member of the Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA).
For BIOBESTicide, Tecnalia evaluates the sustainability performance of the project, considering the whole value chain.
Discover more about Tecnalia reading the interview PNO Consultants made with Raul Ugarte.
My name is Raúl Ugarte Lodeiro and I’m a researcher focused on life-cycle oriented methodologies (mainly Life Cycle Assessment) and circular economy. I’ve been working at Fundación Tecnalia R&I for the last 6 years, in the Circular Economy research team.
TECNALIA is the largest centre of applied research and technological development in Spain, a benchmark in Europe and a member of the Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA). TECNALIA collaborates with companies and institutions to improve their competitiveness, people’s quality of life and achieve sustainable growth and its research has a real impact on society and provides specific solutions to the major global challenges. Its main scopes of action are: Smart Manufacturing, Digital Transformation, Energy Transition, Sustainable Mobility, Personalized Health and Urban Ecosystem.
My colleagues and I have been participating in the BBI programme for many years as bioeconomy is an important research line in our company, so we jumped in when we had the opportunity to join the project consortium to apply our knowledge on sustainability assessment. We were especially interested since we have already worked along Basque vineyards owners and wineries in other projects, so we were aware of the sustainability issues related with common pesticides.
We are not involved in any specific stage of the value chain as our role is to evaluate the sustainability performance of the BIOBESTicide considering the whole value chain. In this sense, I would say that our work is very relevant for the manufacturing phase, where GREENCELL is working on the design and production of the biopesticide. Our work will allow GREENCELL to identify the major hotspots of their process and improve its sustainability performance if possible.
We expect an increase of the commitment of innovation projects and companies with global environmental issues. Since the European Commission has launched the Green Deal and expects to invest in green and sustainable technologies, we think that future developments will be focused in enhancing sustainability performance while maintaining economic and social benefit. Currently, many companies are designing roadmaps to achieve decarbonisation and become more circular, so it is a matter of time that this vision is spread globally.
We hope the project will keep the right direction and that we can contribute to its success. We are also looking forward to having the first insights on the sustainability performance of the new biopesticide.