Sorigué, through its Innovation Department, is involved in the Greenhood project, funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe programme, which aims to find sustainable and efficient solutions to improve soil nutrient management.  

Excess nitrogen and phosphorus from agriculture, wastewater, and industry have caused severe ecological consequences, including soil degradation, water contamination, and biodiversity loss.  

To tackle this issue, 28 partners from ten European countries are working together to test solutions for rebalancing nutrient flows for a sustainable future. The collaborative effort includes companies, universities, research centres, policymakers, and environmental organizations across the continent.  

In this project, Sorigué provides its facilities at Noguera Renovables as a testing ground for demonstrations in collaboration with the BETA Technological Centre of the University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia. Using technologies such as filtration, intelligent fertilization, and fertigation, among others, researchers aim to rebalance nutrients in the Ebro basin, and Sorigué could potentially become an end-user of the results obtained.  

Tests in four regions  

The project promotes nutrient circularity at a regional level and introduces sustainable governance measures that are economically viable for farmers, industries, and policymakers.  

To achieve this, large-scale tests will be conducted in four European regions: the Ebro River basin in Spain; the Meuse, Rhine, and Scheldt river basins in Belgium and the Netherlands; the Archipelago Sea basin in Finland; and the Trondheim fjord basin in Norway.

In the Ebro basin, the challenge is to address emissions from intensive livestock farming and agro-industrial activities using advanced nutrient recovery technologies, bioremediation, and intelligent fertilization.  

In Belgium and the Netherlands, lands irrigated by the Meuse, Rhine, and Scheldt rivers will be treated with precision fertilization, buffer strips, and wetland-based treatment systems.  

Solutions proposed for the Archipelago Sea basin in Finland include circular bioeconomy measures, such as soil amendments, valorisation of sewage sludge, and bio-based fertilizers (BBFs) made from poultry manure.  

Lastly, in the Trondheim fjord basin in Norway, digital monitoring tools and new nutrient management technologies for aquaculture and livestock are being developed.  

This project aligns with other ongoing initiatives, such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy, the Farm to Fork Strategy, and the upcoming Integrated Nutrient Management Action Plan (INMAP), which aims to reduce nutrient losses by 50%.  

Currently, Sorigué’s Innovation Department, in coordination with the group’s business areas, is conducting several research projects in the fields of urban wastewater and circular economy. Among these, Hidroterm stands out, which investigates the integration of hydrothermal hydrolysis in agro-industrial biogas plants to optimize anaerobic digestion. Another project of interest for the primary sector is HarvRESt, which seeks to integrate renewable energy sources from farms to enhance sustainable energy production and promote decarbonization.