GOLD project aims to produce clean low Indirect Land Use Change biofuels by growing selected high yielding lignocellulosic crops on contaminated land, and, in long-term, to return the polluted lands back to the agricultural production.

This research project is mainly built on three pillars:
– the optimization of selected high-yielding lignocellulosic energy crops for phytoremediation purposes will be addressed in two continents: in Europe (Greece, Italy, France, Poland) and in Asia (India and China)
– the biofuel production will be accomplished by two thermochemical conversion routes; in both routes the produced liquid biofuels will be clean and the contaminants will be collected in concentrated form
– an integrated sustainability assessment will be carried out and a specific model will be developed for selected value chains, so as to bridge the gap between phytoremediation strategies and clean biofuel production

Best practices and recommendations for combining phytoremediation with clean low ILUC biofuels will be developed, taking into consideration both environmental and socio-economic gains and bringing GOLD closer to its ambition and reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).