How to implement SSbD in your business

Last week, a training service was conducted by IRISS to help companies use SSbD in their businesses. The workshop discussed topics such as lifecycle analysis methodology, upcoming legislations and how to translate the framework for SSbD criteria to specific cases.

Irantzu Garmendia Aguirre from the Joint Research Centre (JRC) started off the workshop by presenting the SSbD chemicals and materials framework, the European Commission’s SSbD recommendations, case studies conducted by JRC and the timeline until the revision of the framework.

After that, Lya G. Soeteman-Hernández from RIVM talked about SSbD and why it is important to incorporate SSbD in business strategies in regard to upcoming regulatory challenges. Furthermore, Soeteman-Hernández gave tips on how to conduct a safety assessment early in the innovation process.

The workshop also gave the participants the opportunity to learn more about lifecycle assessment (LCA) by Gemma Mendoza from Tekniker, as well as how to conduct an LCA and use it in SSbD. Hanna Holmquist from IVL presented ProScale, a method for assessing the toxicological potentials of product systems in a life cycle perspective.

After the presentations and case studies with pitches by Clemens Wolf (BNN), Lutz Walter (ETP) and Xavier de la Rosa (Solutex). This was followed up by a roundtable discussion, moderated by Anne Chloe Devic. The panellists dove into questions such as the most important challenges related to SSbD and possible solutions, what the difference is between designing of new products and re-designing old products when implementing SSbD, and the role of digitisation when implementing the SSbD chemicals and material framework.

In the final part of the training session, Lazaros Karaoglanoglou from the National Technical University of Athens and Klaus Kümmerer from Leuphana University Lüneburg introduced the current available courses and programmes related to SSbD at the universities. The session ended with a wrap-up by Klaus Kümmerer.

Did you miss the workshop?