Socio-Economic Life Cycle-Based Framework for Safe and Sustainable Design of Engineered Nanomaterials and Nano-Enabled Products

Abstract

This manuscript describes an innovative approach to socio-economic assessment of (advanced) engineered nanomaterials and nano-enabled products (NEPs) to support safe-and-sustainable-by-design (SSbD) decision making by industries in the early stages of product development. This semi-quantitative methodology is based on a sound conceptual framework grounded in the combination of social life cycle analysis and multi-criteria decision analysis methods and supports decision making based upon socio-economic impacts assessed over the full life cycle of a product. To facilitate its application by industries, the methodology was implemented as an Excel-based self-assessment tool. This easy-to-use, cost- and time-efficient tool can guide users through their SSbD decision making regarding newly developed nanomaterials and NEPs and can also be applied to re-evaluate existing materials and NEPs in order to improve their sustainability from a socio-economic perspective. The relatively low requirements of this tool regarding the level of efforts and expert knowledge needed for its application make it a good starting point for initial assessment to highlight socio-economic issues in the value chain. The results of this initial screening can be further used for more detailed analysis in the later stages of product development by performing a full social life cycle assessment (S-LCA).

Status, implications and challenges of European safe and sustainable by design paradigms applicable to nanomaterials and advanced materials

“…The goal of the workshop was to identify differences and overlaps between the SSbD approaches and to provide common messages on the progress towards the implementation of concrete SSbD concepts, and to reveal challenges faced in their realistic and straightforward execution. All project are contributing towards the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDG 3,6,9,12,13).…”

“…9 combined in a stepwise nested approach risk assessment, LCA and Socio-Economic Analysis (SEA) to support the SSbD efforts. The authors implemented the Cooper's Stage-Gate model which was also proposed by the pioneers of the SbD iterative approach in nanosafety (NanoReg2) [10][11][12][13] proposed a semi-quantitative methodology grounded on the combination of S-LCA and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods to support the initial screening and decision making upon socio-economic impacts over the life cycle of a product at each stage gate of the innovation process. The application of their methodology is a scoring procedure (Excel based self-assessment tool) to facilitate its uptake by industries.…”

Safe-and-sustainable-by-design chemicals and advanced materials: a paradigm shift towards prevention-based risk governance is needed

“…In tier 2 a more targeted analysis should be performed to understand if the issues identied in the tier 1 pre-screening have been resolved and if new issues can be identied. Tier 2 may comprise (semi)-quantitative scoring methodologies 30,31 to assess the health, environmental, social, and economic impacts and the circularity of the materials/products. This analysis will rely on a combination of more detailed qualitative information from the manufacturer but also on quantitative data.…”

Enhancement of Anaerobic Digestion with Nanomaterials: A Mini Review

“…It is clear that a complete sustainability analysis (from environmental and economic perspectives) is necessary. Unfortunately, only very recently have some general reports regarding the sustainable design of engineered nanomaterials and the future prospects of the life cycle assessment of nanomaterials been published [61,62].…”