Across three days, the summit created a collaborative platform to exchange knowledge and showcase tools, methodologies, and case studies; discussions highlighted key challenges for SSbD implementation, including limited awareness—particularly among SMEs—data gaps, methodological complexity, and unclear economic incentives. Stakeholders emphasized the need for pragmatic, user-friendly tools, improved data sharing, and stronger links between research, regulation, and industry.

Sessions and roundtables addressed the perspectives of initiators, legislators, regulators, and implementors. A recurring message was the importance of shifting from reactive compliance to proactive, design-led innovation. Solutions presented by EU projects demonstrated how digital tools, AI, tiered assessment strategies, and life-cycle thinking can support early-stage decision-making and reduce risks and costs.

The summit also underlined the importance of regulatory preparedness, trusted environments, and cross-sector collaboration. Concepts such as regulatory sandboxes, standardized data formats, and the role of SSbD ambassadors emerged as key enablers for wider adoption.

ANTHOS’26 concluded with a forward-looking discussion stressing the need for incentives, education, and coordinated action to scale SSbD. The event successfully strengthened collaboration across the community and set the stage for future innovation in safe and sustainable materials.

From 10-12 November 2025, PLANETS’ partners took part in the 2nd Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) Conference – SSbD25, held in Zurich, Switzerland. The event, organised by IRISS project – the International SSbD Community – and Empa, brought together researchers, industry representatives, and policymakers to exchange knowledge and advance the implementation of SSbD principles across sectors.

The PLANETS consortium was well represented, with partners including Sébastien Artous (CEA), Ayse Ay and Wendel Wohlleben (BASF), as well as Benjamin Punz and Martin Himly (PLUS).

During the conference, Ayse Ay presented a poster on the SSbD assessment of alternative flame retardants for use in plastic insulation foams, showcasing PLANETS’ contribution to developing safer and more sustainable materials. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17593867.

Wendel gave an oral presentation entitled “Innovators tailor the SSbD implementation via SSbD scenarios“. In his presentation, Wendel explained how innovators can adapt SSbD to their specific context. It introduces rules for tailoring SSbD based on key scoping factors—novelty, sector, and innovation goals—and economic aspects such as R&D budget, maturity, and expected value. From these, archetypal scenarios arederived that reveal where economic incentives support tailored SSbD approaches, offering clear guidance for innovators.

It was a great opportunity to reconnect with the broader SSbD community, share insights, and discuss the path forward towards sustainable innovation.

A big thank you to the organisers for an inspiring event – we’re already looking forward to next year’s edition!

Conference programm available here.

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.

From 11-15 May 2025 took place the SETAC 2025, the 35th Annual Meeting of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in Europe, at the Austria Center in Vienna. 

Under the overarching theme “Innovation for Tomorrow: Progress in Safe and Sustainable Concepts”, the conference emphasized the need for integration of cutting-edge innovations with safety and sustainability considerations, through implementation and expansion of the Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) thinking, as well as it application beyond the development of new molecules and products (e.g., also to cities, land use and landscapes). The conference attracted roughly 3000 people to the capital of Austria, from many various stakeholder groups, i.e., academia, industry, innovators, EU institutions, national authorities, etc. 

Several PLANETS partners participated in the conference (CEA, BASF, BNN, AIMEN, TNO, PLUS, Radboud University) and spread the word about PLANETS in their three oral and three poster presentations: 

On Monday, May 12th there were several sessions on SSbD:  

• Joséphine Steck (CEA) gave an oral presentation in session 6.05 “Implementing Holistic SSbD Approaches to Chemicals and Materials: What Do Academia, Industry, Regulators and Policymakers Propose?”. Under the title “An auto-diagnostic SSbD tool to facilitate the integration of Safe and Sustainable by Design approach in the innovative stage”, Joséphine presented a simplified SSbD evaluation to reduce data needs, time, and expertise, making SSbD more accessible while maintaining its core goals. A three-tiered approach was introduced, and the presentation focused then on the first tier. A questionnaire was developed to compare options across four SSbD dimensions: safety, environment, economy, and social. Users answered simple questions for each dimension, with results providing an overall percentage score, highlighting gaps, and guiding further assessments. This assessment has been tested on molecules, products, and processes within the CLEANHYPRO and PLANETS projects, showing its flexibility as a quick pre-assessment tool. Its main benefit is boosting the agility of research strategies by identifying SSbD gaps and next steps. In higher tiers, expert-driven assessments will dive deeper into each dimension. As outlook, the PLANETS project is refining the tool to better comply with industrial needs. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15463692

• Wendel Wohlleben (BASF) gave an oral presentation also in session 6.05. In his talk entitled “Value creation and tiering: incentives of SSbD integration into industrial innovation projects with LCA and measured safety screenings”, Wendel explored how to convince companies to take up more quantitative SSbD approaches, and how to generate incentives by strong tiering and tailoring the SSbD approach to the specific scenario. The topic will be followed up with the entire community in the NSC online workshop on June 23rd. 

On Tuesday, May 13th: 

• Ayse Ay (BASF) had a poster in the session 6.11 “Flame Retardants Regulatory and Circular Economy Challenges”. Under the title “Safe and Sustainable by Design, Scoping, and Simplified Assessment of Alternative Flame Retardants for Use in Polymer Insulation Foams”, Ayse provided insights into the implementation of SSbD at the molecular formulation level for over 70 flame retardants. She shared results from the Simplified Assessment Questionnaire for key alternative flame retardants in each insulation foam class, highlighting the questionnaire’s discriminatory power and limitations. 

• Matiss Reinfelds (BNN) had a poster in the Session 6.05 “Implementing Holistic SSbD Approaches to Chemicals and Materials: What Do Academia, Industry, Regulators and Policymakers Propose?” on “Redesigning for the Future: Applying Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) Principles in High-Impact Chemical Industries” with results from our project PLANETS. The poster served as basis for the discussion on SSbD implementation in an industrial setting. The poster is publicly available under DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15463912. 

On Wednesday, May 14th, the focus turned to science communication in the session 6.06  “Communication for Tomorrow: From Experimental Design Towards Societal Impact” with an oral presentation from BNN’s Caitlin Ahern. Under the title “Getting Beyond the Bubble: Measuring Effectiveness of Outreach Activities for SSbD-Related EU Projects”, Caitlin assessed social media activities to reach out to a wider community, presenting PLANETS as an example of successful practices. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17619612.

On Thursday May 15th, Asif Pasha Mohammed (AIMEN) had a poster entitled “Digital Product Passports for Improved Consumer Transparency and Health Impact Awareness”, in the session 1.06 “Data-Driven Toxicology: Practical Applications and Insights into Using Existing and Emerging Data in Support of Human and Environmental Health”. In his poster, Asif highlighted how Digital Product Passports improve consumer engagement through transparent, health-focused data. It emphasizes the importance of standardized, interoperable systems for real-time decision-making. Integrating trusted sources like ECHA/REACH builds consumer confidence and supports safer product choices. 

Additionally, task 2.3 was kicked-off in Vienna, having the Prater as an inspiring location for great discussions in the internal meeting! 

Below some impressions of the SETAC25 including a video!