Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design
Partly based on: Patinha Caldeira et al., 2022 (© European Union, 2022)
The EU Chemical Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) aims at fostering a transition towards safer and more sustainable chemicals. To ensure this transition, safety and sustainability considerations should be integrated when assessing existing chemicals as well as alternative chemicals that might substitute them.
There is, therefore, the need to develop a new framework for the definition of criteria for SSbD chemicals and materials. A framework for SSbD requires the integration of risk assessment and safety-based considerations with life cycle-based consideration, to ensure sustainability along the entire value chain. (Patinha Caldeira et al., 2022)
Safe and Sustainable by Design chemicals and materials Review of safety and sustainability dimensions, aspects, methods, indicators, and tools
This report aims at reviewing existing frameworks for SSbD, identifying which are the sustainability dimensions included in those framework as well as the parameters, the methods, the models, the tools and the indicators used proposed to address the key issues at stake.
Supporting S(S)bD
NanoCommons Safe-by-Design data and software platform interoperability and integration workshop 9 November 2021. Collaborative research supported by NanoCommons transnational access. More info…
Mapping study for the development of sustainable-by-design criteria The aim of this study is to map existing initiatives and R&I activities related to sustainability that are relevant for the development of sustainable-by-design criteria for chemicals, materials and products. It includes three main parts, 1) Identification of existing policies and initiatives that implement sustainability criteria, 2) Analysis of a sample of criteria under the relevant policies and initiatives with a focus on materials and chemicals, and 3) Analysis of the progress in R&I. (© European Union, 2021)
Inventories of S(S)bD tools Collection of inventories with tools and services supporting SSbD e.g. from the OECD mapping study and JRC technical report linked above.
What is SSbD exactly and how should it be implemented? - some expert opinions
2nd Safe and Sustainable by Design stakeholder workshop Workshop organised by the European Commission streamed live on 22 March 2022
The EU Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability action plan foresees the development of a framework towards safe and sustainable by design (SSbD) criteria for chemicals and materials. SSbD is an approach to the design, development, production and use of chemicals and materials that focuses on providing a function (or service), while avoiding or reducing harmful impacts to human health and the environment. SSbD aims at facilitating the industrial transition towards a zero pollution/toxic-free, climate-neutral and resource-efficient economy.
Hear nano-specific SSbD definitions from speakers of SABYDOMA’s “A Stakeholder’s Perspective of Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design” workshop 18 Feb. 2022
Steps in the approach to safe and sustainable design - European Environment Agency (EEA) Why should products be safe and sustainable by design?
Making products safe and sustainable by design has the potential to improve product safety, prevent pollution, mitigate climate change and enable a circular economy. This entails assessing product performance against requirements for safety and sustainability at the design stage of product development, rather than after a product has been designed and is on the market. During the design phase, product engineers have more flexibility to innovate to meet performance objectives for safety and sustainability. An upstream approach is more efficient and effective than having to address deficiencies at the end of the product development process.
While the development of methodologies for delivering approaches to safe and sustainable design remain in the early phases, key steps in the product design process can be described …
Some criteria from the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) 
The EU chemical industry sees “Safe and sustainable-by-design” as a process to accelerate widespread market uptake of new and alternative chemical products and technologies that deliver greater consumer confidence in their safety, environmental and societal benefits and advance the transition towards a circular economy and climate-neutral society.
Safe-by-design and EU funded NanoSafety projects: Report on the EU nanomaterial SbD landscape in 2021
The report was delivered to the European Commission as a contribution of the EU NanoSafetyCluster (NSC) to answer the request to contribute to their study on the state-of-the-art and ongoing research in the field of Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design.
Safety aspects are amongst others very important to be addressed in the research, development and innovation (R&D&I) along the entire development chain, and specifically already from the earliest possible stages onwards. Considerable experience and knowledge have been gained in recent years tailored to nanomaterial related safety aspects. This enables the entire development and manufacturing areas to reduce delays to market launch of a product while extending their design processes to Safety and Sustainability by Design (SSbD). SSbD concepts and solutions developed in the nanotechnology area have the potential to become an essential asset in the future SSbD approach. Hence, several EU-funded projects in the frame of H2020 have already begun to integrate such aspects into their activities. Application- and/or product-oriented frontrunner-projects (e.g R2R Biofluidics-project1) have already incorporated sustainability aspects [in relation to theUN SDGs]. In other projects, case studies have been performed and initial discussions on safe innovation approach took place. In a few ‘closer-to-the-market’ projects (e.g. OITBs) this has been included specifically. Of course, it is needed to further advance current SbD tools and models to be future proof. Thus, the H2020 projects that address SbD aspects either on materials- and models-level, as well as on complex systems, have to support the further development by implementing this in the standard development process, and in parallel, shall contribute to the establishing a nano risk governance council and a sustainable nanofabrication community. Furthermore, a key issue to implement SbD is data. To enable SbD-implementation, all the knowledge needs to be handled according to the “FAIR”-principles to secure its access and use in the long-run, connected with European initiatives (e.g. EOSC, EUON), made operational via an umbrella infrastructure (i.e. NanoCommons) that shall be the organisational center to include or make accessible all data from finished and/or ongoing H2020 (e.g. PROCETS, caLIBRAte, ACEnano, Purenano, Hi-Accuracy, etc.) as well as future projects that will be funded under Horizon Europe.
References
- Patinha Caldeira et al., 2022: Patinha Caldeira, C.; Farcal, R.; Moretti, C.; Mancini, L.; Rauscher, H.; Rasmussen, K.; Riego Sintes, J.; Sala, S. Safe and Sustainable by Design chemicals and materials Review of safety and sustainability dimensions, aspects, methods, indicators, and tools, EUR 30991 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.2760/879069.