As foreseen in Portuguese strategic documents such as the National Energy and Climate Plan 2030, industrial sectors must prepare their specific roadmaps to reach deep decarbonisation levels by 2050. In the past few years, the European Recovery and Resilience Program financed many decarbonisation roadmaps, including for cement, ceramics, glass, agroindustry, chemistry, textiles, machinery, plastics, wood products, and others.
As a part of the periodic efforts to update national-level plans such as the National Energy and Climate Plan 2030 and the National Strategy for Hydrogen, a high-level analysis was performed of these RRP decarbonisation roadmaps. While it must be recognized the high value of the roadmaps regarding each technical forecasts, eco-design, circularity, measures for actual processes, economic and financial issues, etc., the analysis focused only on energy-emissions.
In general, the roadmaps were found to be prioritise energy efficiency, electrification, and the phase-out of fossil fuels. In contrast, a wide range of views is presented regarding the role of biomass, of hydrogen and other renewable fuels of non-biological origin, and carbon sequestration. High level compliance has also been overlooked in some cases, for instance the amounts of biomethane and hydrogen foreseen were clearly overestimated considering the expected availability of these renewable gases at a national level.
However, an important finding relates to the interpretation of the meaning of ‘decarbonisation’ and therefore of the objectives of this type of roadmaps. Most roadmaps use emission scope up to 3 – in line with typical ESG assessments but downplaying emissions reduction of the sector itself. Therefore, many of the large emission drops featured in the roadmaps do not reflect decarbonisation efforts but rather the external context of national decarbonisation policies and measures. Apart from this, the industrial sector decarbonisation roadmaps were found to be in general alignment with the national level strategic documents.