NawGreen

All major phenomena in contemporary society involve, at present, processes and socio-economic effects defined by:

• Agricultural and rural socio-economy
• Industrialization and post-industrialization
• Psycho-sociology and consumption economy in consumerist and post-consumerist society
• Digital and integration of digitalization
• Ecosystems of the relationship with nature
• Systems of cultural and material interactions between individuals, families, groups, society
• Production and consumption chains.

All these processes, functions, and effects of contemporary society have in common an acceleration of the consumption of resources, an increasing impact on the quality of the environment, a degradation of the quality of life, and food consumption behaviors. The only solution for a multi-dimensional approach to this crisis is the technologies, methodologies, ideas and circular behaviors. Circularity is the basis of short-, medium–, and long-term strategies in the European Union. The operationalization of innovative solutions that contribute to circular socio-economic development must be one of the fundamental goals of knowledge based on scientific research.

Only by developing circular production and consumption systems, we can stop the accelerated crisis in nowadays modern society. In this paradigm of knowledge practices, the technical research fields are important, and especially those from general chemistry and particularly macromolecular chemistry.

The main idea of the NAWGreen project is to design and develop green and sustainable extraction methodologies and processes for agri-food waste (based on lignocellulosic feedstocks and vegetable by-products and residues) reduction, and turning it into valuable products to re-use them rather than landfilled disposal or combustion, and to give them a new life.