On 11th May 2026, PLANETS partners (Beatriz Alfaro, BNN) part in the third networking workshop of the Collab4Resilience (C4R) initiative, organised by the CheMatSustain communication team. The initiative brings together projects working on safe and sustainable chemicals and nanomaterials, with the goal of strengthening collaboration and amplifying the impact of communication and dissemination activities across the community.

After a year of intensive collaboration, PLANETS partners gathered on 15–16 October 2025 for the M12 General Assembly in the historic and picturesque city of Utrecht, the Netherlands.

During the Assembly, all project partners shared updates on the progress achieved across the various work packages over the last 6 months. The sessions fostered constructive discussions on key developments and strategic directions for the next six months of the project.

In addition to the work package updates, dedicated parallel sessions were organised for the case studies on surfactants, flame retardants, and plasticizers. These sessions focused on technical progress, data collection, and coordination of ongoing activities.

Aligned with the General Assembly, a joint session with the sister projects was held— AlchemiSSts, BIOSAFIRE, DESIDERATA, and RADAR. Each project gave a brief presentation to lay the groundwork for closer future collaboration. PLANETS will be introduced as well during the next GA of each sister project.

The agenda also featured a presentation by Ronald Flipphi from the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, who provided valuable insights from a policymaker’s perspective on Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD). 

Special thank you goes to our colleagues at TNO for hosting an excellent meeting and extending warm hospitality, allowing all participants to experience a touch of Dutch culture throughout the meeting.

Some impressions from the meeting:

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 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!

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!

The HARMLESS project was included in the latest BNN QUARTERLY 01/2025 entitled “Collaborate to innovate: Success Stories from Scientific Cooperation” with one article about the PLANETS website launch (page 57).

The launch of PLANETS was also featured in the December 2024 issue of the BNN QUARTERLY: Digital Magazine for Developments in Sustainable Technology. Read on to find out more about what is happening in the areas of SSbD and innovative and advanced materials!