Monthly Archives: February 2022

As the world moves towards an increasingly digital future, expanded connectivity infrastructure has become a defining feature of a modern economy. It allows people and businesses across the globe to connect with and access a world of digital innovation. Whether its for social media and entertainment, or improved business performance through digital processes, connected technologies are now part of nearly every aspect of our daily lives.

Connectivity is vital for the growth and future success of every global economy, the economic benefits of which have been widely researched in many countries. Only recently, however, has a thorough study been conducted on the economic impact of connectivity delivered by submarine fibre optic cables in South Africa. The study, which was conducted by RTI International, finds the overall economic impact of connectivity to be significant, leading to increases in GDP and improvements to the likelihood of being employed. But these economic gains were not broad-based because many South Africans still do not have access to or cannot afford fast and reliable Internet services. So, why are subsea cables so important to our economy, and what can we do to get more South Africans connected?

Transitioning to a digital-first economy

Over the last few decades, South Africa has transformed from a resource-based economy relying on rich mineral reserves, to an economy driven largely by tertiary sectors such as financial and business services, transport and communication, and manufacturing. Unlike more labour-intensive and low-skilled sectors, these sectors all rely heavily on ICT infrastructure that requires connectivity. The study by RTI International demonstrates this, finding that subsea cable connectivity led to a 6.1% increase in GDP per capita between 2009 and 2014. This can be attributed to factors such as technological innovation, access to international markets, and improved education for people living in connected areas.

Connectivity also has a role to play in addressing unemployment, which remains one of South Africas most pressing socioeconomic challenges. In the aftermath of the pandemic, unemployment rose to a record high of 34.9% by the third quarter of 2021. The RTI International study finds that people were 2.2% more likely to be employed if they lived within 500 metres of the fibre network. The study also highlights that connecting South Africas most densely populated areas would translate to the greatest increases in total employment.

Connecting Africa with the world

Subsea fibre optic cables are the backbone of the Internet. But before Africa had a subsea cable system, the entire continent relied on sporadic satellite connections that made Internet access largely inaccessible and expensive. At the same time, South Africas telecommunications market suffered because it did not have a competitive structure, which changed in 2008 when a court ruling allowed other industry players to build infrastructure and provide Internet services.

One year later, Africa saw its first commercial undersea cable. The SEACOM cable spans 17,000km and connects the Eastern and Southern coasts of Africa with the rest of the world with faster and more affordable fibre connectivity. The RTI International study credits this subsea cable for disrupting the market, resulting in a substantial decrease in wholesale prices for direct fibre and an increased uptake of broadband connectivity.

Since then, South Africas fibre-to-the-home connectivity has expanded significantly, connecting over 600,000 homes in a market that was growing more than 30% per year in 2019. Now, 90% of South Africas population also lives within 10km of a fibre line because of our extensive domestic network in most major cities and towns. But even though widespread fibre penetration is eminently achievable, only 1.2% of households in rural areas had access to Internet at home in 2019, compared to 15.4% of households in metropolitan areas. And despite the fact that mobile broadband coverage reaches over 95% of the population, more than 30% of South Africans still do not use the Internet.

One reason for this is the prohibitive cost of mobile data, and the lack of incentives for last-mile infrastructure development beyond the existing fibre network. While fibre connections require a higher initial investment, fibre ultimately pays its dividends by being orders of magnitude cheaper than prepaid mobile data and providing a much faster and more reliable connection.

Looking forward

Digital technologies are evolving rapidly, which is why we need a modern approach to policy and regulation to keep up with other digitally driven economies. Our policy and regulatory environment in the telecommunications sector has been characterised as sluggish and uncoordinated, such as the failed attempt to deliver universal broadband access through SA Connect.

But there are many reasons to be optimistic. Our government has recognised the importance of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) for the future of our economy, and at a BRICS meeting on 11 November 2021, our Minister of Communicationsannounceda fast-trackprogramme that aimsto connect all South Africans to theInternet within 24 months. Additionally,government agencieswill be funding the development of affordableInternet accessforlow-incomeneighbourhoods. Other initiatives like Project Isizwe are also helping provide local communities with uncapped Wi-Fi for as little as R5.

Theres no doubt that South Africa needs more partnerships between government, NGOs, and the private sector to help narrow the digital divide. By allowing more people and businesses to participate in the digital economy with affordable connectivity, we can create more jobs, accelerate economic recovery, and pave the way forward to a more connected future.

Read the original post:

The Economic Impact Of Connectivity In South Africa - TechFinancials

IP addresses are a key basic resource for the Internet and are the foundation for identifying and data transmission between Internet systems. IPv4 has been in use for more than 30 years, and the IPv4-based Internet has carried a great majority of applications. When the Internet was being designed, the global reach achieved by the technology today wasnt considered, nor was IPv4 address exhaustion, which is becoming an increasing problem. On February 3, 2011, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) announced that the global central pool of available IPv4 addresses was exhausted. The inventory of IPv4 addresses of the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) has been declining ever since.

However, the rise of the digital economy has boosted the development of new services such as smart cities, industrial Internet, and telemedicine. In the future, the Internet will further expand to cover every street lamp, every unit of equipment and sensor in factories, every appliance in homes, and every smart wearable. The number of connections will explode from billions to hundreds of billions, requiring hundreds of millions of IP addresses. The IPv4-based Internet can no longer satisfy the digitalization needs of industries, so it's imperative to develop next-gen Internet for the intelligent connection of everything.

IPv6 allows for abundant addresses to assign unique identifiers to all devices that access the Internet, satisfying the needs of the era of connectivity of everything, where each object has an address and everything is online. The digital transformation of various industries poses different requirements for networks. Networks must both address connectivity and also provide high quality, flexibility, and a range of other capabilities. In the era where all things are connected, the virtual and physical worlds are deeply integrated, and cyberspace requires a secure and reliable network. IPv6 not only supports a large number of addresses, it also features more secure protocols by design and flexible scalability. IPv6 is the foundation of the next-generation Internet that will provide infinite possibilities for future network innovation.

IPv6+ is a systematic innovation on top of IP networks oriented towards the 5G and cloud era. IPv6+ enables more open and dynamic technological and service innovations, more efficient and flexible networking and service provisioning, better performance and user experience, and more intelligent and reliable O&M and security assurance. These will support the evolution and innovation of the next-generation Internet.

Compared with IPv6, IPv6+ delivers major innovations in three areas: 1) Innovation in network technologies, including segment routing over IPv6 (SRv6), network programming, network slicing, deterministic forwarding, in-band flow measurement, intelligent lossless algorithms, innovative multicast, and application awareness; 2) Innovations in intelligent O&M such as network fault discovery, fault identification, network self-healing, automatic optimization, and autonomous driving; 3) Network business model innovation represented by the expansion from the consumer Internet to the industrial Internet.

As an upgrade to IPv6, IPv6+ improves IP network innovation capabilities in six dimensions: ultra-broadband, ubiquitous connectivity, security, automation, determinism, and low latency, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Six-dimensional capabilities of the innovative IPv6+ system

Ultra-broadband: IPv6+ unleashes the potential of ultra-broadband to address uncertainties in future services. It provides end-to-end 400GE throughout the access, backbone, and data center networks to bear the traffic generated by hundreds of billions of connections and all things migrating to the cloud.

Ubiquitous connectivity: IPv6+ provides multi-service bearing and network-as-a-service capabilities. SRv6 and other technologies support end-to-end traffic scheduling, protocol simplification, network programmability, and user experience assurance, addressing the need for an integrated multi-service experience.

Security: IPv6+ creates an inherent security experience for the IP network. It takes a zero-trust approach, authenticating all accesses and granting the fewest privileges necessary. The collaborative cloud-network-security-integrated architecture for handling threats shortens the threat containment time from hours to minutes.

Automation: IPv6+ enables the autonomous driving network (ADN) that features automation, self-healing, self-optimization, and autonomy. It uses new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), in-band flow measurement, and knowledge graphs, to shorten fault recovery from hours to minutes and realize the intelligent prediction of network faults.

Determinism: IPv6+ delivers predictable, deterministic experiences of IP networks. It uses the network slicing technology to create a network environment that is secure, reliable, and predictable, reducing jitter from ms-level to s/ns-level. It also uses the lossless network technology to achieve zero packet loss in data centers.

Low latency: IPv6+ supports an immersive experience where people interact with the virtual world instantly. It reduces the end-to-end latency of a metropolitan area network (MAN) to about 10 ms, and through device-network synergy, reduces the static latency of a data center network from s-level to 100 ns-level, and the single-hop dynamic latency from 10100 s to 1 s. This enables more efficient data channels.

Enhanced IPv6+ networks improve network capabilities through large-scale commercial deployment of IPv6 and IPv6+ innovations, driving the convergence of networks and services. This plays a significant role in the digitalization of government services, manufacturing, finance, and energy, serving as the connectivity foundation for the digital economy.

IPv6+ digital government: A core requirement for developing digital governments is to address data interoperability to achieve the objective of one network for all services. IPv6+ breaks down organizational silos and implements intensive network construction to support all government organizations on the same network. This ensures efficient data sharing and efficient city operations, and enables cross-level coordination, inter-departmental collaboration, and service-oriented, Internet-based government services.

In Chinas Guangxi, the secondary plane of the IPv6+-based e-government extranet covers 14 districts and cities and 111 counties, solving problems such as different types of private networks for different departments, data sharing difficulties, and duplicated network construction. This lays a solid foundation for the convergence, sharing, and utilization of the region's government data. Now, 99.9% of the region's same-level government private networks are interoperable, 99.9% of the non-classified information systems in the region are now cloud-based, and 99.73% of the region's government service requests can be closed with one onsite visit. The efficiency and capabilities of government services have been significantly improved.

IPv6+ smart manufacturing: Today's advanced manufacturing plants are growing bigger, with each workshop housing dozens or even hundreds of units of equipment. As equipment is made by different manufacturers, challenges like varied specifications, multiple protocols, and data silos need to be overcome to digitalize equipment. IPv6+ enables efficient data flow across the entire network by building a new intelligent digital manufacturing networking system.

For example, Masteel Groups manufacturing processes involve thousands of industrial control systems, each with different quality requirements that make it necessary to isolate each service. Traditionally, independent industrial ring networks incur high OPEX and require many optical fibers. By introducing IPv6+ network slicing technology, Masteel now integrates multiple private networks into one network that can isolate multiple services. This ensures that the control signals of different systems dont interfere with each other, while reducing the cost of deploying fibers by 90% and O&M costs by 80%.

IPv6+ finance: The Bank 4.0 era has extended bank service hours from 8 hours a day, 5 days a week to 24/7. And service models have evolved from service halls to a combination of online and offline services. These changes require the support for digitalization, quick cloud migration, and cloud interoperability. Therefore, transformation of the underlying network architecture is necessary for the digitalization of the banking industry. The backbone network is key infrastructure for data communication, and is the most important part of network architecture transformation.

For example, China Construction Bank (CCB) uses IPv6+ as the basis of its single WAN and unified data center network architecture to deploy an intelligent, agile, simplified, elastic, and highly reliable financial backbone network. This network supports the one-hop cloud access of financial services. It can also predict and quickly locate network faults through network-wide sensing. The O&M automation rate has increased by 80% and the emergency handling time has been reduced from hours to minutes, so financial services remain uninterrupted.

IPv6+ energy: A good indicator of smart mining is safe and efficient operations that are barely staffed or even unattended. Applications like smart mechanized mining and smart tunneling has promoted the massive deployment of underground application system devices. IPv6+ provides network infrastructure support for the innovation and development of coal mines in the new era, leveraging massive address availability, embedded security capabilities, network slicing, and in-band flow measurement.

At Xinyuan Coal Mine in Shanxi Province, IPv6+ has enabled the bearing of multiple services (such as the 5G video network and a comprehensive surveillance network) on a single network, avoiding overlapping investment in network construction and reducing costs by 50%. The use of in-band flow measurement technology has shortened network fault location time and the time network O&M personnel are underground by 80%. Smart mining has relocated coal miners from a complex and harsh underground environment to a safe and clean centralized control center, greatly enhancing safety and efficiency.

The scope and nature of IP network connectivity have expanded from connecting people to connecting everything. The emergence of IPv6 and IPv6+ will greatly boost the intelligent connectivity of everything and application scenario innovations. IPv6+ is a next-generation technology in the data communications industry, and a systematic innovation for IP networks oriented towards 5G and cloud. 5G and optical access both need IPv6+. With the cloud at one end and enterprises, homes, and individuals at the other, the IPv6+-based IP network transfers intelligence and computing power to everything to power the growth of the digital world.

Similar to how the convergence of 5G and various industries has unleashed the huge potential of 5G+, the technological innovation and capability expansion of IPv6+ on top of IPv6 have shown immense value beyond providing massive IP addresses. This is attracting a range of industries to collaborate and innovate, and push the Internet into a new era of IPv6-based intelligent IP networks. Looking toward the future, Huawei Datacom will continue its commitment to IP technology innovation, provide high-quality datacom products for customers in various industries, and enable ubiquitous intelligent IP connections, to build a fully connected, intelligent world.

Continued here:

IPv6+: The Connectivity Foundation of the Digital Economy - Huawei

In my column this week, I argued that Putin is even more dangerous than the West can admit.Telegraphreaders were quick to make their thoughts clear. Here, I respond to a few of them.

Anthony Lee counters that Putins hand is weak. All he has achieved is to box himself into a corner. If Putin cannot get Nato to agree that Ukraine will never become a member, he will either have an embarrassing climbdown, or will have to invade.

While I agree that Putin sensing Allied weakness and division has bet the farm on Natoconcessions, I doubt he genuinely believes the West will grant an official moratorium on Nato expansion. What he has said is that any further expansion Eastwards would be unacceptable and he wants security guarantees''. That leaves wiggle room for a de facto moratorium for example on Ukraine-Natomilitary cooperation or Nato bases in Ukraine. There are signs that he may be in with a chance. In a press briefing last night German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed that Ukraines NATO membership was not on the agenda, and a political settlement must be found to avert war.

S.S argues that Putin has shown the world that Russia is not to be messed with whilst our weak Western leaders desperately scramble about what to do next. Hell retire back to Russia shortly and has completely humiliated and run rings around us.

This is exactly the kind of narrative that America is determined to avoid, and in my view explains the bizarre nature of its tactics.

Analysts plugged into Washington have entertained various apocalyptic scenarios, with Putin rolling in tanks, cutting power supplies and killing the Ukraine chief of staff. The CIA meanwhile has espoused a nonsensical "frozen ground"theory that Putin will invade when central Ukraine is covered with ice more than a foot deep.We have even been offered specific dates for an invasion ranging from last weekend and 3am this morning to next Monday.

The only logical explanation I can think of: this is a high-stakes way for the West to set up a narrative for victory should Putin fail to invade. Yet, it is telling that at the same time Ukraine apparently faces horrifying imminent carnage, Washington dismantles telephone systems and destroys computer workstations, as it flees its Kyiv embassy. This suggests that the West prioritises winning the infowar over standing by Ukraine.

A striking number of respondents are sympathetic to Putins case against Nato. Peter Hirsch says that to some extent the current situation results from how Gorbachov's Russia was treated after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Gene Freeman concurs that Putin has likely been marked by the post-Gorbachev humiliation by a very arrogant west. JP.JP says We promised that Russia wouldnt have Natoon every European border. Putins case against Nato expansionism is sound.

While I agree that Putins behaviour is explainable, that doesnt make it justified. We should not overlook the grotesque irony of the fact that Russia a country isolated from the West since the Cold War because it resents the globalist liberal orders priority of "universal values"over sovereignty will happily threaten the sovereignty of Ukraine.

Nor should we gloss over Russias dangerously inflated sense of importance. It is a dying, de-modernising country - a peripheral, middle-income entity with practically third world life expectancy and a resource-based economy comparable with Brazil. It may now be categorically incapable of producing the kind of responsible wealth creators and dynamic middle class that might drive institutional change.

And yet Putin is absolutely convinced Russia is still an important enough player in the global game to not only challenge but actively reconstitute the liberal order. Hence, instead of diversifying its economy, he splurges on nuclear weapons.

One can both be impressed by his patriotism and dismayed at the implications of such delusions of grandeur both for Ukrainians and Russians.

Sherelle will respond to the best comments and letters from this week's column in our weeklyWrite to Reply series. Leave a commentbelowor emaildtletters@telegraph.co.ukfor the chance to have yours included

See the original post:

'Putin's behaviour is explainable, but that doesn't justify it': Sherelle Jacobs responds to readers - Telegraph.co.uk

The project aims to help strengthen the transition to a circular economy through tracking and traceability of critical materials.

Supply chain traceability and transparency start-up, Circularise, has announced it will partner with BEC GmbH, Grundfos, Minviro, and the global Rare Earth Industry Association (REIA) to lead a three-year EIT RawMaterials funded innovation project to build a blockchain based Circular System for Assessing Rare Earth Sustainability (CSyARES).

This will set out to help companies improve transparency and sustainability of their supply chains when it comes to critical and rare earth materials.

According to Circularise, demand for rare earth metals is skyrocketing and by 2030 it is projected to reach 315,000 tonnes.

It says these rare-earth metals are irreplaceable in wind turbines, electric vehicles, mobile phones, computers and the defence industry.

As corporations and governments work toward a sustainable future, climate supply chain traceability software that leverages data and blockchain to measure environmental impact can help increase the secondary resource efficiency and accelerate transition to a circular economy

Rising demand combined with resource shortages and supply chain disruptions means there is a need for sustainably mined and processed metals.

It says the transition to a circular economy is considered crucial and governments around the world incentivise companies to uptake e-waste recycling and other sustainable practises with new regulation.

As highlighted by the European Raw Material Alliance (ERMA) Action Plan, boosting supply security through better cooperation among stakeholders is a top priority.

For rare earth metals suppliers, this means not only becoming more sustainable but also proving their compliance and quality criteria to customers and regulators.

Developing an innovative CSyARES is key in achieving these goals, Circularise says.

In this project, the partnering organisations, including Circularise, aim to:

Commenting on this announcement, Jordi de Vos, Circularises Founder, said:With CSyARES, we see a big potential in developing solutions for suppliers, brands, and industry as a whole to measure, understand and reduce the climate impact of Rare Earth Metals.

As corporations and governments work toward a sustainable future, climate supply chain traceability software that leverages data and blockchain to measure environmental impact can help increase the secondary resource efficiency and accelerate transition to a circular economy.

The project will set out to contribute to the circular economy transformation in the rare earth elements, electric and electronic equipment, automotive, and all other sectors that depend on rare earths.

It will also set out to create new business opportunities for manufacturers and recyclers and allow downstream players to ensure sustainable practises throughout their supply chains.

Circularise is a supply chain traceability and transparency start-up founded in The Netherlands in 2016.

See the rest here:

Blockchain based circular system being developed to assess rare earth sustainability - Circular Online

Utkarsh Amitabh Alumni, Oxford Hub, Network Capital

The world lost more than400 million full-time jobs due to the pandemic, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO). At this point it is hard to say whether, and when, these jobs will come back. Startup hiring might improve things marginally but it cannot address the huge numbers of people looking to get back into the workforce. Governments are struggling to get economies back on track and with intense pressure on healthcare, providing stimulus to other sectors will not be easy.

The result of this systemic imbalance would be that millions are likely to be left to fend for themselves. They will have to reach out to their networks to explore new roles and find and create opportunities for themselves. Just like in previous recessions, many iconic companies will be born that will go on to create enormous financial wealth. They will become employers of choice in the coming decades, but can people wait for that to happen?

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitzpublished a reporton the future of work. One of its key findings is that the gig economy and the Uber for X model are partly making way for the passion economy, where micro-entrepreneurs monetize their individuality and creativity. A key reason for the growth of the passion economy is that it offers alternative ways of making money, innovative paths toward professional fulfilment and unprecedented career opportunities for millennials.

The gig economy resulted in massive productivity gains and huge consumer surplus. Cabs, food delivery, grocery shopping practically all aspects of day-to-day life aided by the efficiency of technology platforms and venture capital money became accessible to a large chunk of the global population. Millions of new jobs were created, innovative business models revitalized entire industries and the GDP of the internet exploded. While there were many practical benefits that accrued, new challenges came to fore. It wasnt tech utopia by any means.

For the longest time, creativity and productivity were at odds. Those who wanted to pursue creative fields found it hard to make ends meet. That is changing. Gig workers are looking for more meaningful ways to make a living. The era of the passion economy and side hustles is here.

New platforms are emerging for creators to monetize their craft and do what they love. The internet is shaping culture and transforming the way we work. Even white-collar professionals are quitting their day jobs to venture into the passion economy.

Gen Z creators, influencers and investors are making different career choices than their parents. There is a subtle shift in what they learn, how they learn and how they earn. They do not see creativity and productivity as two different things. Both are part of the new creator stack that is emerging in the third era of the internet which is often called Web 3.0, a distributed, decentralized internet.

According to aHarris Poll/LEGO survey, the career todays kids aspire to above all others is YouTuber. Being an online creator is twice as popular as being a film star, and three times as popular as being an astronaut. There might be differences in countries based on cultural and economic factors but this massive inversion of career preferences is going to be a defining characteristic of the jobs in the future.

According to the World Economic Forum, 85% of the jobs of 2030 dont exist today. With the passion economy becoming mainstream, new kinds of careers drawing upon a persons intrinsic curiosity will become the norm.0 seconds of 2 minutes, 30 secondsVolume 90%

In addition to widespread job losses, the world is also witnessing The Great Resignation, a term coined by ProfessorAnthony Klotzof Texas A&M University, that predicts a large number of people leaving their jobs during and after the pandemic because they are no longer fulfilled in their work lives.

The passion economy will result in the unbundling of work from employment. People will look to create a portfolio of passions and pursuits that also helps them make a living. In other words, they are likely to monetize their passion and build a career on their terms.

It wont be all fun and games. People need the discipline and the rigour to work hard, experiment fast and deliver consistently. Unlike regular employment, passion economy participants will need to figure out human resource, accounting and legal issues, all by themselves.

InCompany of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business, Paul Jarvis writes that today creators spend more than 50% of their time doing extraneous stuff, which is a colossal waste of income and potential. There is huge scope for improvement here.

Through my ventureNetwork Capital, I am trying to help people teach what they love. One example that explains the unbundling of work from employment is aLebanese professor of philosophy, Mahmoud Rasmiwho quit his university job to build cohort-based courses on the internet.https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/0lLlcoXN6Aa0DnahocncKo?utm_source=generator

Rasmi loved teaching philosophy but didnt find the university in his home country conducive to his career growth. Today, he creates innovative courses on philosophy anduses Network Capital to host, sell and market his offering. In a few months, he is already making thousands of dollars every month. Given the economic and political crisis in Lebanon, he is one of the very people in the country making a decent income. All thanks to the passion economy.

Another example is Vicky Bennison who read zoology in college and graduated with an MBA from the University of Bath. She then worked in international development across Siberia, South Africa and Turkmenistan. Today, she is best known as the person behindPasta Grannies, a YouTube channel that finds and films real Italian grannies nonnas making handmade pasta.

These grannies make lip-smacking pasta and tell delightful stories. What amazes me even more is how grandmas have embraced social media, learned digital marketing and emerged as media entrepreneurs across the world.

The passion economy is personal to me. Last year, in the middle of the pandemic, I quit my job at Microsoft to work full-time on Network Capital, my passion project. I loved my work at Microsoft, but the more I reflected on my core values, the kind of life I wanted to build, and the way I wanted to use my skills, the more it became clear to me that venturing into the passion economy was the way forward for me.

Voltaire said Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need. The current pandemic puts things in perspective. Work has never only been about a pay cheque but in the post-pandemic world, it is sure to alter the alchemy of relationships at scale as people will need to keep purpose and insurance constantly at the back of their minds while making professional choices.

This article was first published in World Economic Forum

Stay updated with all the insights.Navigate news, 1 email day.Subscribe to Qrius

Read the original post:

Is the 'hustle' changing the global economy? - Qrius

Advancing a competitive bioeconomy for a sustainable future

Plastic pollution, climate change and dependency on fossil raw materials are major risk factors for Europe. Atmospheric greenhouse gases continue to increase, leading to extreme weather-related threats, while products derived from fossil fuels, such as plastics from COVID-19 medical equipment, are highly polluting to the environment and present many important challenges, including resource scarcity.

Today, more than ever, we need to change the way we live, produce, and consume. Such transformation is as urgent as it is challenging. How can we enable the green transition, spur economic growth and create new jobs locally, while making a positive impact on the environment and our health? The EU is addressing these challenges in several policy documents stemming from the European Green Deal, which aims to enable Europes green recovery by supporting sustainable growth.

The priorities of the European Green Deal include mobilising industry towards a clean and circular economy, supplying clean and secure energy, preserving and restoring ecosystems and biodiversity, increasing the EUs climate ambition for 2030 and 2050, achieving the zero-pollution ambition for a toxic- free environment, and designing a fair, healthy, and environmentally friendly and sustainable food system. One of the ways to put these priorities into practice is collaborating and working with the private sector to solve specific sustainability challenges.

On 30th November 2021, the Council of the European Union established the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU), a 2 billion partnership between the EU and the Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC), to fund projects advancing competitive circular bio- based industries in Europe. By replacing non-renewable fossil resources with waste and sustainably sourced biomass to produce industrial and consumer goods, the bio-based industries will help Europe become the worlds first climate-neutral continent.

CBE JU is building on the success of its predecessor, the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU), which has demonstrated the added value of a competitive circular bio-based economy in Europe. In particular, BBI JU has funded 13 first-of-their-kind biorefineries at an industrial scale. These biorefineries produce materials and ingredients from locally sourced biomass and plan to reduce CO2 emissions by over 800 kilotonnes per year and create about 20,000 direct and indirect jobs in rural and coastal areas.

As an example, the FIRST2RUN biorefinery based in rural Sardinia is using responsibly cultivated cardoon on marginal land to produce ingredients for bioplastics, cosmetics, fertilisers, animal feed and other sectors. The FARMNG flagship project is building the worlds first industrial biorefinery with mealworms in France to convert leftovers from agricultural processes into proteins for animal feed and organic fertilisers.

BBI JU and CBE JU are part of the EUs Bioeconomy Strategy and Circular Economy Action Plan. At the same time, they both are important contributors to other EU policies stemming from the European Green Deal.

Projects funded by BBI JU contribute to protecting soil biodiversity, an objective of the EUs New Soil Strategy. Among other goals, these projects have been developing bio-based pesticides and fertilisers that safeguard soil ecosystems, as well as aiding in the recovery of marginal lands for sustainable biomass production, thus enriching the soil. For example, the PHERA project works on commercial bio-based insect pheromones for crop protection a sustainable alternative to the current chemical-based insecticides. The GRACE project is restoring degraded soils by cultivating two crops, hemp and miscanthus, as biomass. Miscanthus, a grass variety, is enriching the soil with valuable nutrients.

The BBI JUs commitment to cutting emissions and reducing plastic pollution is in line with the EUs Zero Pollution Action Plan, which aims to reduce plastics pollution by 30% before 2030. For instance, the ENZYCLE project is researching new enzymatic processes to treat and recycle plastic residues that could not be recycled before. The projects team will select enzymes that can degrade plastics and microplastics and apply this on an industrial scale to significantly reduce plastic pollution in wastewater and landfill. Another project, EMBRACED, has built the first- of-its-kind biorefinery in Treviso, Italy, to transform used nappies into new materials, such as organic fertilisers and packaging films. The GLAUKOS project will help the textile industry become more circular by increasing the biodegradation rate of materials while boosting their durability for long-term use.

The bio-based industries contribute to the goals of the EUs Farm to Fork Strategy by using food and crop waste, increasing the shelf life of products and promoting sustainable farming practices.

In Europe, around 90 million tonnes of food and 700 million tonnes of crops are wasted every year. (1) Most BBI JU-funded projects are helping to reduce this waste by turning leftovers from agriculture and other food processes into new food and feed ingredients, bio- based materials and products. For example, the two processing plants built by the AgriMax project are transforming waste from cereals, olives, potatoes and tomatoes into food products, agricultural materials, and biodegradable pots. Such initiatives provide new business opportunities for farmers and diversify their income, and many of them aim to deliver products with nutritional value to the food and feed market.

BBI JU-funded projects also develop bio-based smart packaging to prevent food waste. The BIOSMART projects compostable and recyclable solution, for instance, is also using intelligent oxygen, CO2, and amine sensing technology to monitor the shelf life of products.

Several BBI JU-funded projects are addressing the need to reduce the EUs dependency on protein imports and provide affordable and sustainable feed production. The SYLFEED project, for example, is working on nutritional and sustainable protein production from wood residues for the fish feed market as an alternative to soybean derivatives. It will use underexploited forest and wood waste and bring a competitive source of proteins for fish manufacturers.

CBE JU will develop and expand the sustainable sourcing and conversion of biomass into bio-based products via multiscale biorefineries across sectors and regions in Europe. The partnership will support circular approaches such as the use of biological waste from agriculture, industry and cities to produce new bio-based products, goods and materials.

One of CBEs main targets will be investing in R&I across scientific disciplines that support the bioeconomy and stimulating its uptake by the industry, thus helping to deploy bio-based innovation at a regional scale with the view to revive rural and coastal regions.

Sustainability and biodiversity are placed at the heart of CBE JU. Part of the research efforts will focus on increasing the sustainability of the bio-based industrys production processes, and a robust monitoring system will be put in place to measure the environmental and socio-economic impact of CBE JU-funded projects.

(1) https://www.fao.org/state-of-food-agriculture/2019/en

Editor's Recommended Articles

Follow Open Access Government

Excerpt from:

Advancing a competitive bioeconomy for a sustainable future - Open Access Government

ISLAMABAD: Terming the 220 million population of Pakistan as the biggest human resource and asset, Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday underlined the need of bringing it into the formal economy through the use of the latest technology.

The prime minister was addressing the launching ceremony of Raast, a new State Bank of Pakistan-run instant digital payment system aimed at boosting financial inclusion and government revenue.

Merchants, businesses, individuals, fintechs, and government entities will be able to send and receive near real-time payments through the internet, mobile phones and agents.

Government payments, including salaries and pensions, will also be made through Raast, as well as payments for nationwide financial support programmes, such as the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), and the Ehsaas Emergency Cash initiative.

Developed through a multi-year collaboration between the SBP and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with support from the World Bank, the United Kingdom and the United Nations, one goal for Raast is to boost the involvement of women in the formal economy.

Several private-sector digital cash transfer systems that do not require a bank account, such as Jazz Cash operated by telecommunications company Jazz and Easypaisa operated by telecommunications company Telenor Pakistan, are already available in Pakistan, but Raast would be the first to link government entities and financial institutions.

Khan observed that unless the government utilised the technological revolution to bring the population into the loop of the formal economy, this huge asset will become a burden.

Appreciating the efforts of SBP to facilitate people over the banking system, he said the public often hesitated in visiting the banks, stressing that steps at bottom ups would bring the commoners into the formal economy by easing their modes of payments and transactions through the opening of accounts via the application.

The prime minister said the performance of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government will be judged in 2023 on the basis of its measures to reduce poverty.

The UNDP report placed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the only province where the PTI government during its first term (2013-2018) successfully reduced poverty, he added.

The prime minister said due to such achievement, the people in KP voted for his party in the 2018 general elections.

He further opined it would be a great success for his government if it succeeded in lifting the people out of poverty.

The Covid-19 crisis affected the world population alike but the government in Pakistan took measures to save its people from the economic meltdown and inflation, he added.

Khan, whose government has taken steps to automate the collection of taxes on transactions and tightened rules on banking, said shifting away from a cash-based economy and tackling corruption were the chief motivations behind Raast.

Pakistan collects about the least amount of tax in the world, he said. We cannot build infrastructure, we cannot work on human development, or educate children, or improve hospitals.

The prime minister noted that saving rates and the tax-to-GDP ratio was low in Pakistan when compared with the rest of the world and it could be increased by making technological advances and by fine-tuning the formal economy.

For increasing tax revenue, he said, usage of technology was being ensured by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) as out of 220 million, only 2 million were paying taxes.

Khan said FBR had collected data of those people who were living a luxurious life but not paying any taxes.

Referring to 9 million Pakistan nationals living abroad as valuable assets for the country, the prime minister suggested the establishment of a cell to further facilitate them in sending their remittances home.

He said their remittances had helped in supplementing the countrys foreign reserves.

The prime minister stressed they must make efforts to ensure direct financial support to the lower segments of society through the use of modern technology and cited the rolling out of Ehsaas Ration programme in this regard.

View original post here:

Use of latest tech vital to bring population into formal economy: Imran - Pakistan Today