The new action plan of the European Commission – the green deal – aims to increase the sustainability of the European economy. One pillar of the green deal is the consequent promotion of circular economy related processes.

In this context, ULTIMATE (indUstry water-utiLiTy symbIosis for a sMarter wATEr society) will foster the synergetic cooperation between the industry and the water sector for an intelligent and efficient operation of water-related processes. This will be done via the establishment of “Water Smart Industrial Symbiosis” (WSIS) between different industries and service providers. The aim is to use and reuse jointly water, wastewater and all used recyclable resources. Industries such as agro-food, beverage, (petro-)chemical and biotech industries participate in ULTIMATE. Those industries together with service providers such as municipal utilities and water service providers as well as scientific institutions will develop and/or investigate and assess 36 technologies in 9 case studies. Furthermore, Ultimate develops new business models focusing on WSIS up to their market maturity.

In ULTIMATE the KWB will be the leader of the work package “Technology demonstration”. Here, all technologies will be investigated and optimised for their synergetic and intelligent joint operation. In addition, new concepts regarding material recycling will be elaborated and an interactive technology evidence base will be developed. Furthermore, KWB will be the scientific partner for the Danish case study in Kalundborg. There, the joint operation of an industrial wastewater treatment plant with the neighbouring municipal wastewater treatment plant will be modelled with the aim of its implementation in the real operational mode at a later stage in the project.

Moreover, KWB will assess the applied technologies from selected case studies via life cycle and risk assessments. In so-called “Communities of Practice”, different stakeholders will be brought together in order to discuss, optimise and to adjust the requirements of the simultaneously developed technologies.

ULTIMATE is funded by the European Union in the programme Horizon 2020 (Grant agreement ID: 869318) for 48 months. The KWR Water Research Institute from the Netherlands has the coordination of the consortium of 26 partners (research institutes, utilities and SMEs).

• Website ULTIMATE

• Evidence Base for circular economy technologies