Establishing EU led international community on safe- and sustainable-by-design materials to support embedding sustainability criteria over the life cycle of products and processes (CSA)

Topic description

ExpectedOutcome:

Develop a common understanding of the principles of sustainable-by-design when applied to materials, both products and processes. The challenge is to identify the key dimensions that need to be integrated in a product sustainability performance assessment and enhance a systems approach based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) framework. The transition to sustainable-by-design^[1] is a societal urgency^[2]. It is for example the prerequisite to develop alternative and safer (lower toxicity) plastics, surfactants and metal-based systems, and it is relevant for all types of materials.

The proposals are expected to support the uptake and utilization of the sustainable-by-design strategies by industry, especially SMEs, by contributing to the following outcomes:

• Criteria and guiding principles for sustainable-by-design (i.e. integrating safety, circularity and functionality of advanced materials, products and processes throughout their lifecycle), in line with ongoing international work by e.g. OECD, UNEP, ECHA.
• A permanent structure for long-term operation of established gender balanced and inclusive expert’s network by time of project end with the involvement of wider communities engaged, beyond consortium members;
• Broadly supported and periodically updated roadmaps based on state of the art knowledge, identified information gaps and their translation into specific R&D questions and governance needs.

Strengthen collaboration and information exchange between relevant actors along value chains (developers, producers, downstream users) to promote the development and implementation of sustainable-by-design approach. Enhancing ownership and engagement of the society through active collaboration and empowering people and communities as actors of the sustainable-by-design transition.

Establish an inclusive and self-sustained international gender balanced and inclusive network of experts and stakeholders in the materials community to enable multidisciplinary design processes, map skills mismatches and competence gaps, to enable transition towards an overarching framework in which sustainability is the essential entry point into markets:

• Perform landscape analyses of methodologies that focus on the de novo design, which guides sustainable products and processes and coordinate with the projects from NMBP-15, NMBP-16-2020 and other relevant initiatives (e.g. those in WG-E of the EU NanoSafetyCluster) to fill in the gaps in the current understanding;
• Develop working framework for creation of an expanded safety and sustainability community, with agreement to create a common mechanism to engage, mobilise and bring together diverse stakeholders;
• Map and address sustainable-by-design skills mismatches and competence gaps, and support the enhancing of adequate skills at all levels - including in university programmes, research, industry and among regulators;
• Coordinate with other EU-funded projects targeting Sustainable-by-Design materials, in particular: HORIZON-CL4-2021-RESILIENCE-01-11, HORIZON-CL4-2021-RESILIENCE-2021-01-12 and HORIZON-CL4-2022-RESILIENCE-01-13

Sustainability and life cycle of products and processes have a major impact on and can positively contribute to the health and well-being of our citizens.

The topic is open for international cooperation where the EU has reciprocal benefit.

Resulting projects should establish cooperation mechanisms with relevant international initiatives to align and leverage the extensive experience. Therefore, proposals should foresee a dedicated work package for cooperation and earmark appropriate resources.

Socio-economic science and humanities
International Cooperation

[1] Sustainable-by-design concept takes a systems approach by integrating safety, circularity and functionality of advanced materials, products and processes throughout their lifecycle. This concept can be defined as a pre-market approach that focuses on providing a function (or service), while avoiding properties that may be harmful to human health or the environment. from a lifecycle perspective.

[2]Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability COM(2020) 667 final