The project to use pruning material to produce biomethane received European funding from the LIFE Programme in 2019, as it was awarded around Euro 1.4 million for the LIFE STEAM project. For years, Hera has been conducting research to analyse technologies to produce advanced biofuels by processing mowing and pruning material collected in its service area. This waste material is currently used in composting processes or for energy recovery but in the future it may be used to produce bioethanol and biomethane. Both of these fuels can be considered advanced because they are produced from waste material and not from dedicated energy crops which use land which could be used for human food or animal feed. Pre-treatments are required to be able to obtain these fuels from ligno-cellulosic waste, such as steam explosion, a particular thermal treatment that uses high-pressure steam, that makes the material readily degradable by bacteria, enzymes or yeasts, in anaerobic digestion processes or alcoholic fermentation. The results of the experiments, completed in 2018, led to the definition of an initial project on an industrial scale to produce biomethane from waste ligno-cellulosic biomass, for which the permitting process will begin in 2020 (at the Enomondo plant).