Developing Scotland's sustainable, local and low carbon value chains

Since 2017, Ricardo has undertaken a series of projects on behalf of Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC), Scottish Enterprise and Zero Waste Scotland. Read more below:

Customer Requirements 

In 2017, IBioIC and Scottish Enterprise contracted Ricardo to develop the Scottish Bioresource Mapping Tool.

This tool was enabled through use of the data collated for the 2017 report ‘Biorefining Potential for Scotland’ which Ricardo developed for Zero Waste Scotland.

Ricardo Solution 

Ricardo developed the tool using Microsoft Excel mapping Scotland’s bioresource arisings to the local authority level. Arisings covered included household and commercial and industrial waste, by-products (from whisky, beer, fish, dairy and meat), agriculture and sludge. We subsequently developed three new streams (CO2, macroalgae and forestry biomass) and revised all the datasets for Zero Waste Scotland in 2021 and 2022. The tool was updated with these new datasets in 2024.

Customer Benefit 

Ricardo’s experience in conducting literature reviews, market assessments, stakeholder engagements and Material Flow Analysis (MFA) supported the creation of a tool helping identify, assess, quantify and map Scotland’s bioresource arisings. Using this tool, organisations can access detailed data on the availability of biological waste, by-products and residues, allowing industries and manufacturers to source sustainable, local and low carbon materials and/or to valorise their own biological waste, by-products and residues.

This has the potential to support Scotland’s reduction of carbon emissions and the Scottish value chains identifying circular opportunities to address the increasing generation of biological waste, by-products and residues.