Integrating safety and sustainability in chemical innovation: opportunities and implications of the revised SSbD Framework

Main Presenter:    Lígia da Silva Lima 

Co-Authors:   Eelco van IJken     Sabine Navis                                          

1. Background
Innovation and development are core characteristics of the chemicals sector. Materials and mixtures are essential for a wide range of applications, from functional textiles to advanced electronics and sustainable technologies. New chemical compositions are continuously developed, often aiming at reducing human and environmental health impacts and improving environmental sustainability.
The Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) framework is developed to support innovation by integrating safety and sustainability considerations during the R&D and/or product design process. It covers the entire life cycle of chemicals and products. The framework was initially published by the European Commission Joint Research Centre in 2022 and revised in December 2025 to improve clarity and usability. The SSbD framework was developed to assess safety and sustainability in a holistic approach, which are currently often addressed separately despite being equally important in the development of novel chemicals, materials and products. The revised framework introduces a set of principles to support consistent application and tiered assessment.

2. SSbD framework
The assessment starts with a scoping phase, in which practitioners identify key issues related to a novel chemical, product or material and prioritize relevant scenarios to exclude or minimize potential risks. The revised framework streamlines the safety assessment, placing more emphasis on risk assessment approaches. The safety assessment steps are followed by an environmental sustainability assessment, applying life cycle assessment (LCA), and a socio-economic sustainability assessment. An explicit evaluation and integration step supports the identification of hotspots and opportunities for improvement, while guidance on documentation ensures systematic and transparent reporting.

3. Key aspects of this presentation:

4. Practical implications of the revised SSbD framework for industry:
• Hotspot and improvements identification to inform R&D choices and better product positioning;
• Informed decisions on substitutions early in the design process, avoiding “regrettable substitution”, e.g. defining new alternatives that are still of (very high) concern.

5. Highlighting opportunities arising from its revision:
• Hazard and exposure aspects have been combined in the new framework (safety assessment), resulting in a holistic safety overview;
• Improved comparability of LCA results through the use of benchmark scenarios proposed.

6. Practical tools that can be used for safety and sustainability assessments are also presented:
• Automated screening of chemicals based on Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP), priority/watch lists, Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR) models + AI predictions;
• Quantification of LCA impacts of alternatives in relation to predefined reference chemical(s);
• Straightforward life cycle costing, calculation of externalities, and social aspect ranking.

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