3FOOD

Third Industrial Revolution Consulting Group
development and processing of innovative materials in fields like the automotive industry and
aeronautics. It is estimated that the composite materials sector in Luxembourg is already
generating a turnover of almost € 400 million per year and employs 1,600 people. Launched in
2016, the future National Competence Center will employ 60 people when fully operational.
Today, it is nearly impossible to know the exact composition of end user consumer products
(down to parts per million [ppm] levels). If the goal is to maintain a high quality throughout the
use and re-use (up-cycling) phase, it is essential to know the exact composition of the material.
This issue is further complicated by the protection of intellectual property.
Moreover, implementing circularity across the value chains in Luxembourg is complicated by
the issue of storage and security of data. Widespread protection of product recipes by the
companies prevents a transparent exchange of information. As a result, many of the
components that make up the supply chain remain unknown even to the final manufacturer of
a finished consumer good. Blockchain could be a solution. A decentralized collection of data
allows every enterprise across a specific supply chain to track information on materials and to
store it in a secure way. Due to Luxembourg’s strong ICT commitment, the country boasts
several young ICT companies actively engaged in research on blockchain processes. At this
stage the development is highly Fintech oriented but could easily be adaptable to general data
storage and material information tracking.
Luxembourg’s IT infrastructure is among the best and most secure in Europe and the world and
is complimented by excellent network coverage. The investments in the digital infrastructure
over the last decade should be fully exploited to generate economic activity on a cross sectorial
basis. The recently announced “Important project of common European interest on high
performance computing and big data enabled applications (IPCEI-HPC-BDA)," in which
Luxembourg will play a key role, will further strengthen the ICT ecosystem of the Grand Duchy
by adding a strong HPC (High Performance Computing) competence and granting access to
exceptional computation power for simulation and data processing purposes.
While the current thinking in Luxembourg is technology-driven, there is not enough focus given
to biological resources; i.e. how biological materials flow back and forth through the technical
supply chain cycle and the subsequent impacts on biological resources that result from
overreliance on a linear consumption model. Environmental and social burdens and costs are
rarely internalized in the process/product but, rather, transferred to the public sector or society
at large. The post-consumer material cycle illustrates that there is, as yet, a lack of a common
view on what is ‘waste’ and how it should be treated. Moreover, current regulations and the
large number of actors in the decision making process may significantly delay the
implementation of new ideas. Indeed, current national and international regulations often
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