From 6 to 9 September 2026, the Biopartitioning and Purification Conference (BPP 2026) brought together in Bled (Slovenia) experts from academia and industry to exchange insights on the latest advances in bioseparation, purification, and sustainable bioprocessing.

The conference explored emerging topics including AI-driven process optimisation, biomass processing and waste valorisation, novel bioproducts, life cycle assessment, and regulatory frameworks. Through keynote lectures, presentations, posters, round-table discussion, and networking, the BPP 2026 provided a good platform for sharing knowledge, showcasing innovations, and building new collaborations for the future of sustainable bioprocessing.

On the last day of the conference, 9 September, Martin Himly (PLUS) gave an oral presentation within the SSbD workshop entitled ‘Regulatory and Sustainability Considerations. In his presentation, Martin reported on the first lessons from putting Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) into practice across the project’s three industrial value chains: flame retardants, surfactants, and plasticizers. He also covered learnings from the scoping, Tier 1/simplified, and Tier 2/intermediate assessments phases, and experiences with data confidentiality in regards to Digital Product Passport (DPP) development.

Thank you to the organisers of the conference for giving us the opportunity of being part of the conference, and specially of the SSbD session, jointly organised by the sister projects TOXBOX and SSbD4CheM.

Relevant links:

• Event website
• Agenda
• Book of abstracts

See below for insights into the conference. More pictures are available here. Photo credits go to Beatriz Alfaro and Boris Pretnar.

The SETAC Europe 36th Annual Meeting took place from 17–21 May 2026 in Maastricht, the Netherlands, bringing together around 2,500 participants from academia, industry, EU institutions, and regulatory bodies interested in the programme, which included keynote lectures, oral and poster presentations, workshops, and networking events. This year, the event’s theme was ‘Embrace the outlier: in science, regulations, and networks’, bringing together diverse perspectives to advance environmental sciences and their adoption in policy making, and serving as a major platform for discussing the latest scientific and regulatory developments in environmental toxicology, environmental chemistry, sustainability, life cycle assessment (LCA), risk assessment, Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD), as well as including industrial ecology, material science, pharmaceutical sciences, governance studies, agricultural studies, etc.

PLANETS partners from CEA, TNO, BASF, and BNN actively contributed to the conference by presenting research related to the project, as well as best practices in scientific communication.

• Katharina Lang-Hogrefe (BNN) gave an oral presentation on importance of scientific communication to ensure a high level of engagement, entitled “Clear, Concise, and Complete: Finding the Sweet Spot for Detail and Simplification in Science Communication“, on 18 May in the Session “6.10 – Translating Complexity – The Role Science Communication Plays in Generating Lasting Societal Impact“. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20345940. 
• Susan Dekkers (TNO) gave an oral presentation, entitled “Integrated Methodology and Decision Support System for Safe and Sustainable Substitution“, on 20 May.
• Joséphine Steck (CEA) presented a poster about PLANETS’ SSbD Wordbook, entitled “Common Language for Safe and Sustainable by Design: One Wordbook to Understand Them All”, on 21 May. She explained that it is a carefully selection of terms and definitions covering safety, sustainability, methodological tools, indicators, and regulatory aspects relevant to SSbD which aims to create a common understanding of key concepts for the successful implementation of the SSbD approach.
• Joséphine Steck (CEA) delivered an oral presentation about the PLANETS’s Workflow on 21 May. Under the title “Operationalising Safe and Sustainable by Design for Industry: Mapping, Coordinating, and Structuring Chemical and Material Innovation with the PLANETS Workflow”, she explained that the PLANETS’ Workflow is co-developed by a multidisciplinary team through iterative cycles, tackling key SSbD challenges. Drawing on insights from the literature, the resulting structure includes two main phases (scoping and assessment) supported by an educational kit.  The assessment phase is further subdivided into simplified, intermediate, and full tiers, enabling a progressive and adaptable evaluation process. The overall process requires adapting to varying numbers of alternatives, potentially clustering similar options for feasibility. SSbD ambassadors to each CS supported coordination, stakeholder engagement facilitation, and integration of safety and sustainability from the start.
• Wendel Wohlleben (former BASF) presented, on 21 May a poster about the NSC workshops on SSbD scenarios organised in 2025. Title of the poster: “Tailoring, Tiering and Archetypal Scenarios: Outcome of two Workshops on SSbD Scenarios in the Network for Safe and Sustainable Chemicals & Materials (NSC)” .

Additionally, PLANETS coordinator organised an informal meeting with the RESILIENCE-24 sister projects to discuss “day-by-day” activities in the projects and how to increase collaboration in selected topics.

The participation in SETAC Europe 2026 provided an important opportunity for PLANETS partners to disseminate research outcomes, engage with experts, and strengthen collaboration. The posters and oral presentations generated valuable scientific discussions around SSbD and scientific communication. The event also contributed to increasing the visibility of the project and fostering future networking and collaboration opportunities.

Relevant links:

• Event website
• Programme
• Book of abstracts

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!