Safe and sustainable-by-design: The case of nanomaterials

Safe and Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) principles have emerged as a critical component of the European strategy for safe and sustainable chemicals and materials (ECSS, 2020), to safeguard health and the environment within a Safe Innovation Approach (SIA) (Shandilya et al., 2021). SSbD and SIA encourage the exploration of alternative advanced materials and production processes, within a proactive framework that places an emphasis on incorporating safety and sustainability considerations into the early stages of innovation. Early assessment of risks is key to these approaches, so that developers can identify opportunities to reduce adverse impacts on human health and the environment throughout the entire life cycle of chemicals and materials (Florin, 2023). SSbD can integrate green chemistry principles to promote the development of safe, biodegradable or recyclable chemicals (Furxhi et al., 2023), go beyond the traditional goals of circular economy for reduce, reuse, recycle (Apel et al., 2023), and consider societal and economic aspects (Cassee et al., 2024). The effort to propose a standardised procedure for SSbD innovation that the industry would adopt voluntarily is still ongoing. Alternatively, the adoption of SSbD could be promoted through regulatory pressures and/or consumer demand for sustainable practices (Tarraço et al., 2021) as part of eco / green innovation approaches. The new eco-design regulation aims to establish updated standards for green products, enhancing their circularity, energy efficiency and other aspects of environmental sustainability in the EU market. This applies to the assessment of existing chemicals as well as the criteria for developing new SSbD products according to the ECSS (EcoR, 2024).