Innovating with Purpose: A Hands-on Journey into Functional, Safe and Sustainable Advanced Materials

Every year, usually, a vibrant community of young researchers and seasoned experts convenes in the historic centre of Venice for the Venice School. The 13th edition of the Venice Training School took place from 9th to 13th June 2025 to focus on advancing knowledge and practice in Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) assessment and decision-making for advanced materials (AdMa) and chemicals, and explore cutting-edge methodologies for ensuring the safety, functionality, and sustainability of innovative materials.

The Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) concept starts at the very earliest stages of the design process – so why not plant the seeds early with the researchers and consumers of the future? 😊  

On 26 September 2025, BNN had a hands-on station at European Researchers’ Night, held as “Life is Science” at Universalmuseum Joanneum in the city center. Organized by BioNanoNet Association member acib, Life in Science was Austria’s only ERN event this year!  

PLANETS was included in the latest BNN QUARTERLY 03/2025 entitled “Scientific Impact on Clean Manufacturing Solutions” with four articles:

• BNN Leads SSbD Workshop for Highschoolers
• PLANETS SSbD Wordbook
• Explore PLANETS’ Latest Training Materials
• Recap from the SSbD Scenarios Workshop

The issue also advertised the upcoming 2^nd NSC/PLANETS workshop on SSbD scenarios for advanced materials, and ANTHOS’26!

On 5 September 2025, the Polymer Additives Academy 2025 hosted its second (of four) session at the NHOW Hotel in Milan (Italy), bringing together more than 120 participants (80 on-site and 45 online). Organized by the PLANETS partner Greenchemicals, the event served as a platform for dialogue between industry experts, researchers, technicians, and university students, focusing on the latest advances in polymer additives and sustainability.

This second session was focused on styrenics polymers, concretely on insulating foams. The program day’s agenda covered a broad spectrum of topics, from the evolution of XPS foams and low-halogen flame retardants to Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) approaches, recycling strategies, and CAM criteria (Minimum Environmental Criteria (CAM – Criteri Ambientali Minimi)). Contributions from academia, industry, and institutions highlighted both regulatory developments and technological solutions driving innovation in the sector.

Of course, PLANETS could not miss it and many partners attended the event: Carl-Christoph Höhne, Benedikt Bitzer (Fraunhofer ICT), Joséphine Steck, Marie Carriere, Nienke Ruijter (CEA), Laura Magnasco, Martina Riccio (RINA), Tobias Moss, Roberto Chinchilla Pardos (Budenheim), Wendel Wohlleben, Ayse Ay (BASF), Martin Himly, Sabine Hofer, Norbert Hofstätter (PLUS), Vanessa Alvear (AIMEN), Herbert Scharnagl, Leonhard Ritter (Steinbacher Dämmstoff GmbH), Thomas Hennequin (TNO), Poornima Nagesh (Radboud University), Anita Sosnowska, Szymon Zdybel (QSAR Lab), as well as the hosts of the event, Micaela Lorenzi, Sabrina Zambotti, Valentina Pelliccioli, Barbara Chinello, Sofia Luise, Davide Lecchi, Doris Lemi (Greenchemicals).

A highlight of the event was the oral presentation by Carl Christoph Höhne (Fraunhofer ICT) and Thomas Hennequin (TNO) entitled “Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) Flame Retardants for Insulation Foams – the EU PLANETS Project Approach”, which provided valuable insights into how SSbD principles can be applied to flame retardants in styrenic insulation materials.

Both presentations are available in the PLANETS Community in Zenodo under DOI: 10.24406/publica-5377.

The strong interest confirmed the event’s success in reaching a highly relevant audience and showcasing collaborative European efforts in advancing sustainability in polymer additives.

Additionally, a hybrid meeting of the flame retardants case study of PLANETS was also organised, to discuss the status and next steps in the project.

Some impressions of the Polymers Academy and the internal meeting:

On 19 May 2025, PLANETS consortium organised an internal training on (1) FAR data & models, and (2) Digital Product Passport (DPP).

Aim and key topics of the training

FAIR data and models: The workshop provided a comprehensive overview of the FAIR data principles—Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable—and their application in research data management. It aimed to raise awareness, provide assessment tools, and offer practical guidance for enhancing data FAIRness in research workflows.

• Introduction to FAIR Principles: Participants were introduced to the concept of FAIR, including what the acronym stands for and why these principles are important in data sharing and reuse. The distinction between FAIR data and Open Data was also clarified.
• Assessing FAIRness, exploring common challenges associated with non-FAIR data and introduced tools such as FAIR-Aware and the FAIR Evaluation Services to help participants assess the FAIRness of their own datasets. Real-life examples from other projects (FIPs – FAIR Implementation Profiles) were used to illustrate how organizations are implementing FAIR principles in practice.
• FAIR in Practice, with practical implementation strategies, covering essential elements such as metadata standards, persistent identifiers, licensing and access considerations, controlled vocabularies, trusted data repositories, and approaches to improving metadata quality.
• Internal discussion on FAIR Data and the PLANETS Project, which included a proposed data workflow tailored for the PLANETS project.

Digital Product Passport (DPP): This workshop gave an overview of the DPP concept, its relevance in supporting sustainable and circular product systems, gave policy context, and practical implications for stakeholders across the product lifecycle, preparing participants to understand and deal with upcoming regulatory and data management requirements. Key topics covered:

• Introduction to DPP, with a definition of the Digital Product Passport, and explanation of its role in enabling better product information exchange to support sustainability, compliance, and circular economy goals, including historical and policy background of the DPP and major milestones in its development. The discussion highlighted how the DPP emerged from broader EU policy efforts.
• Policy Context: DPP within the framework of key European Union initiatives EU Green Deal (aiming for climate neutrality), CEAP (Circular Economy Action Plan, promoting sustainable product lifecycles), and ESPR (Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, which provides the legal basis for DPP implementation).
• DPP Objectives (transparency, circularity, and traceability) and identified key stakeholders involved, including manufacturers, regulators, consumers, recyclers, and others throughout the product value chain.
• Product groups covered by DPP as well as prioritization criteria.
• Data requirements for DPP (such as material composition, carbon footprint, and regulatory compliance information) as well as challenges in data collection and management.
• Practical examples of DPPs in use or in development, to help participants visualize how these passports might be applied in different sectors.

Highlights of the workshop

The session was moderated by Martin Himly (PLUS), who leads the training work package within PLANETS. He introduced the session, outlining the objectives and structure of the training.

Vanessa Alvear (AIMEN) lead the FAIR data training, supported by Benjamin Punz (PLUS). Anita Sosnowska (QSAR Lab) explained the role of QSAR in respect to FAIR and Carla Caldeira (SYENSQO) commented on data sharing versus confidentiality. The DPP training started with an interactive questionnaire (prepared by Beatriz Alfaro and Matiss Reinfelds (BNN) to get the first impressions from the participants about their concerns, potentials and limitations of DPP. The DPP training was led by Asif Mohammen (AIMEN).

Training Materials

Building on the insights from this internal training, PLANETS has developed external training materials as an introduction to FAIR data & models and Digital Product Passport (DPP). These materials include:

• Presentation slides of the FAIR data & models training
• Presentation slides of the DPP training
• Recording of the FAIR data & models training  [YouTube video]
• Recording of the DPP training [YouTube video]

All training materials are available in the PLANETS community on Zenodo under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence, allowing for redistribution and reuse with proper credit to the creators. You can access them here.

Additionally, all recorded sessions can be viewed on the PLANETS YouTube channel.

On 8 April 2025 and aligned with the M6 General Assembly of the project in Gdansk (Poland), PLANETS organized a hybrid internal training for all project partners on SSbD assessment.

The aim of this workshop was the harmonisation of understanding for entire consortium, focusing on intermediate and full assessment (Tier 2-3), including hazard identification, QSAR modelling, and toxicity prediction. Participants explored existing tools for predicting physicochemical properties and biological activities of chemical substances, key elements in the Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) approach.

Highlights of the workshop

The session started with a brief overview of Martin Himly (PLUS), who leads the training work package within PLANETS, about the previous internal SSbD trainings. He introduced the session, outlining the objectives and structure of the training. Thomas Hennequin (TNO) and Ayse Ay (BASF) continued with a summary of ideas for the collection of harmonised data. Afterwards, Anita Sosnowska (QSAR Lab) gave an overview on QSAR and Szymon Zdybel (QSAR Lab) performed a hands-on exercise on QSAR with all participants.

Training Materials

Building on the insights from this internal training, PLANETS has developed external training materials for conducting a SSbD Tier 2 assessment by QSAR modeling. These materials include:

• A QSAR step-by-step guide, the presentation slides, and four VEGA reports to conduct a practical exercise. Materials available here.
• Recording of the workshop [YouTube]

All training materials are available in the PLANETS community on Zenodo under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence, allowing for redistribution and reuse with proper credit to the creators. You can access them here.

Additionally, all recorded sessions can be viewed on the PLANETS YouTube channel.

On 16 June 2025, Andreas Falk from BNN had the great pleasure of leading a workshop on Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) for high school students at HTBLA Kaindorf in Austria.

After setting the stage about the three pillars of sustainability, the three dimensions of SSbD, its indicators and 5 steps, as a real-life SSbD implementation example Andreas introduced the case studies of the PLANETS project, which is developing safer and more sustainable alternatives for chemicals with surfactant, flame retardant or plasticising functionalities. All three of these chemical classes have a large chemical-market share, highlighting the importance of research and EU-funded projects for improving chemicals that affect our daily lives.

Many teenagers in the audience will be the engineers and scientists of tomorrow, future professionals who will play a big role for reaching the EU’s aim to become climate-neutral by 2050. With this in mind, the engagement of workshop’s participants in performing a practical exercise of Tier 1 SSbD assessment of an everyday consumer product assured us that, if we invest in educating our young people, we can shape the health of people and planet in the future!

On 23 June 2025, the NSC Working Group on Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD), Innovation & Regulation organised an online workshop on “SSbD scenarios for advanced and incremental innovations” as a collaboration effort among several EU-funded projects: AlChemiSSts, DESIDERATA, PLANETS and SUNRISE. 

Not all innovation scenarios in SMEs and industry are the same. Current JRC SSbD guidance and also the Portfolio Sustainability Assessment (PSA) / Cefic concepts leave room for tailoring the SSbD approach within a tiered framework. Scenarios support the tailoring, such that SSbD is not just another burden, but increases overall competitiveness. 

But how should a SSbD scenario be described? This was exactly the aim of this first workshop.  

The workshop tested aspects that described a scenario by knowledge that is available at early innovation stages withreal-world cases kindly provided by innovators from the projects AlChemiSSts, DESIDERATA, PLANETS and SUNRISE. Shortlisted aspects included the professional environment (start-up, SME or industry), the sector of application (B2B vs B2C), the innovative height (incremental or advanced), R&D project budget, and other aspects that would be known to the innovator before starting any lab work.

EUIndTech2025 is the new EU flagship event, in which the two cyclical events, “Conference on Industrial Technologies” and “EuroNanoForum” are merged. This year it was done during the Polish presidency of the EU Council in Krakow, Poland. The EUIndTech2025 brought together more than 800 stakeholders from academia, research organizations, industry, NGOs and policymakers to discuss the state-of-the-art technologies, challenges and trends. 

BNN’s CEO Andreas Falk in his role as part of NSC’s coordination team and as partner in PLANETS, organised a NSC Session, having Prof. Martin Himly (PLUS) (chair of the NSC Working Group on Education and partner in PLANETS) as moderator and Prof. Eva Valsami-Jones (UoB) (member of NSC’s Coordination Team) as speakers in key roles of the session. Together with other members of the NSC and further stakeholders they were on stage at EUIndTech25 for the NSC-session entitled “Designing Safe and Sustainable Materials and Chemicals – SSbD Implementation and Digitalization” on June 2nd, 2025. 

The NSC session addressed the importance of integrated approaches, data-related expectations, advantages and challenges for ultimately balancing ecological, societal, and economic goals for a more sustainable future. The session was moderated by Martin Himly with oral presentations given by Eugenia Valsami-Jones, Andreas Künkel (BASF) and Garbine Guiu Etxeberria (EC, DG RTD). For the panel discussion the speakers were joined by Andreas Falk, Daniel Hubert (VisterNova), Peter Klein (FhG) and Mary B. Walsh (Honeywell).  

As a follow-up of the discussions during the session, the panellists formulated 3 paragraphs as output of the session, which will be part of the Malopolska Declaration. 

NSC members highlighted during the NSC session the work done within the NSC projects, PLANETS among others, to a very engaged audience in Krakow.

PLANETS was included in the latest BNN QUARTERLY 02/2025 entitled “Digital Transition for Innovative Technologies” with four articles:

• Pint of Science brings Technology to the Pub
• BNN and Members Active at SETAC European Congress
• PLANETS Strategy for Implementation of SSbD in the Industry journey (page 51)
• PLANETS Publishes Training Materials on SSbD scoping and Tier 1 Assessments (page 53)

The issue also advertised the upcoming NSC/PLANETS workshop on SSbD scenarios for advanced materials!