BizMet Academy Course - EIT RawMaterials

BizMet – Competitive sustainable business from metal recycling – project funded by EIT Raw Materials is organising a course on circular economy, especially focusing on metal recycling, giving students a broad overview of the trade covering technology, sustainability, business and regulative aspects.

This course is arranged in co-operation with LUT University (Finland), TU Clausthal (Germany), Mineral and Energy Economic Research Institute – MEERI (Poland) and TU Chalmers (Sweden).

Overview

The course covers the complex multiple value chains of the recycled metals industry with an emphasis on regional and common themes. The themes include, for example:

recovering secondary metal raw materials from sources such as eWaste and metal scrap, technological treatment processes of secondary raw materials
design of innovative products/processes/services, including eco-design
circular economy and industrial symbiosis value chains and novel business models
the extended producer responsibility in circular economy

The course also includes a voluntary assignment element. The target of the assignments is to deepen the understanding of selected themes of the course through real life industrial cases. The assignments are conducted in international working groups. The working groups will finalise their assignments in Idea Camp.

Target audience

University students (PhD and MSc level), teachers and researchers, industrial professionals and other stakeholders interested in metal recycling and circular economy.

Objectives

The participants will be able to:

understand how to implement circular economy in the utilisation of secondary metal raw materials,
evaluate the challenges of metal recycling, urban mining, circular economy and industrial symbiosis in general,
identify special characteristics and regional differences in metal recycling value chains,
apply technology, sustainability and business models related to metal recycling and urban mining,
analyse the effects of technology, sustainability and business models on the competitiveness of a product/process/service.
analyse and understand the effects of extended producer responsibility in circular economy
identify the technological and business opportunities in the multiple value chains of the trade and design value chains with minimum environmental impact

Type of training

Course: eLearning, Self-study

Assignment: Self-study, Group work, Idea Camp

Course content

BizMet Academy course contains five study Modules: (1) Circular economy, (2) Circular Economy in metal industry, (3) Environmental management of (metal) recycling, (4) Business in (metal) recycling, and (5) EU legislation and regulation for CE and metal recycling. In addition, students can choose to carry out an assignment.

The course programme contains the following themes:

Module	Theme	Content
Module 1	Circular economy	Introduction to CE; the role of CE in the policy and strategy of the EU and other countries, including China; significance of material consumption, waste hierarchy, 9R concept, economic symbiosis in country and organization strategies; ecodesign; the role of transport in CE
Module 2	Circular Economy in metal industry	Waste management of metal production; treatment and utilization of solid residues from the mining industry; metal recovery from tailings; electrochemical methods for metal recovery; recycling of metals, spent batteries and WEEE; towards fossil free steel; circular economy concepts in metal industry; circular economy in practice- Case Outokumpu; additive manufacturing of metals
Module 3	Environmental management of (metal) recycling	EPR, CSR, environmental footprints, environmental and economical accounting; tools for low carbon process design
Module 4	Business in (metal) recycling	Value creation, environmental marketing, business models in CE, acceptance of secondary raw materials by customers/consumers/industry; digitalization of circular economy
Module 5	EU legislation and regulation for CE and metal recycling	Overview on European legislation and regulation on CE and metal recycling; environmental protection laws; standards and sanctions; producer responsibilities in different levels of legislation

Participants can also choose to conduct an assignment in addition to the course. The target of the assignments is to deepen the understanding of selected themes of the course through real life industrial cases. The cases come from metal scrap yards, steel and bronze foundries, battery and aluminium industry. The assignments are conducted in international working groups. The working groups will finalise their assignments in Idea Camp.