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SSbDworkshop-Highschool
News
July 4, 2025

Bringing SSbD closer to the next generation: SSbD workshop for high-school students

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!

StartSlide4
News
June 30, 2025

Recap of the NSC workshop on “SSbD scenarios for advanced and incremental innovations” on 23 June 2025

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.

Agenda of the NSC workshop on SSbD scenarios on 23 June 2025

Danail Hristozov (Green Decision, and chair of the NSC WG on SSbD) opened the workshop and welcomed the more than 60 international participants from academia (56%), large industry (19%), SME (8%), consultants (11%), regulators (3%) and EU institutions (3%). Irantzu Garmendia Aguirre (European Commission Joint Research Center (JRC)), gave JRC’s point of view in her talk on the Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) Framework: Scenario building with the scoping analysis, where projects with different starting points and different development routes “climb to the summit of SSbD-lead innovation”.

ParticipantsStakeholders
Overview of the participants’ stakeholder groups

Wendel Wohlleben (BASF, and co-chair of the NSC WG on SSbD) presented the concept of the SSbD scenarios, setting the basis for the rest of the workshop, which continued with an introduction by Lya Soeteman-Hernández (RIVM, and co-chair of the NSC WG on SSbD) of the Case Studies break-out groups joined by the participants, where the methodology used in the different case studies was explained and discussed: 

  • AlChemiSSts case study: Cauchos Ruiz Alejos (represented by MĂłnica MartĂ­nez, from AVANZARE), on firefighter soles using safe alternatives to hazardous flame retardant additives 
  • DESIDERATA case study: Anastasia Moschovi, from MONOLITHOS, on geopolymers originating from mining waste as replacement of Aluminum in construction 
  • PLANETS case study: Stefan Haid, from WACKER, on binders for paint (where the surfactant used during synthesis chemical needs to be tailored to avoid byproducts) 
  • SUNRISE case study: Laurentia Technologies (represented by MarĂ­a Rivero GarcĂ­a, from ITENE) on post-harvest fruit treatment based on safer microencapsulated oil 

After a short break, Martin Himly (PLUS, and chair of the NSC WG on Training) moderated the joint reporting session of the different breakouts, where feedback was collected for redefining the questions. 

The workshop concluded with Wendel Wohlleben and Carla Caldeira (SYENSQO) summarising the feedback collected and setting the next actions on: 

  • how to use the scenario described by information from SSbD scoping and from the business case collected in the workshop for better tailoring the SSbD assessment; 
  • the need of further work in the clarity of some of the questions used to describe a scenario, based on feedback during the workshop; 
  • the need of involving industrial organisations (beyond those involved in EU-funded projects) in testing the SSbD tailoring via SSbD scenarios; 
  • the need of developing incentives for making industry implement SSbD in their processes; 

 

Two main activities are planned as follow-ups of this workshop: A second workshop, in Autumn 2025, distilling “archetypical SSbD scenarios” & their tailored SSbD approaches, and finally, a joint NSC publication on the demonstration by case studies by the involved projects, their SME innovators, industry innovators and SSbD experts. 

Workshop materials:

Workshop materials are publicly available in Zenodo, under DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15756155.

The recording of the workshop is available in the NSC YouTube channel.

Some impressions of the workshop:
PLANETS_Meeting_Erpfendorf_2
News
April 4, 2025

Soufflé and Foam Insulation – What do they have in common?

Insights from the PLANETS Flame Retardant Workshop (19-20.03.2025)

In the project PLANETS, the Flame Retardants Case Study focuses on the development of safer and more sustainable alternatives for flame retardants used in thermoplastics made from polystyrene and thermoset foams derived from polyurethane. 

To produce expanded polystyrene (EPS) materials, solid beads of polystyrene are used. These beads contain not only polystyrene but also additives required for the final product, such as dyes (coloring agents), nucleating agents, and flame retardants. During EPS production, the solid beads undergo a significant increase in volume due to the effect of a blowing agent and gentle heating. In contrast, polyurethane (PU) foam insulation does not require a heating process. PU foams form spontaneously when monomers, which already contain all necessary additives, are mixed together. This chemical process can be likened to baking a soufflé—only instead of eggs, sugar, and flour, a chemist “chef” uses various chemical ingredients. Just as a soufflĂ© recipe must be carefully followed to achieve optimal results, the successful creation of polymeric foams relies on precise ingredient ratios, exact formulations and well-chosen process parameters. Alterations to an optimized recipe—for instance, changing the flame retardant—may adversely affect the final quality and performance of the foam. But don’t panic, unlike a soufflĂ©, our insulating foams do not collapse.

Foams
Change in foam quality with variations in ingredient ratios, formulations, and process parameters

For this reason, PLANETS chemists met with engineers and SSbD experts on 19-20 March 2025 during a two-day workshop held at Steinbacher Dämmstoffe, in their headquarters in Erpfendorf in Tyrol (Austria). The timing of this workshop coincided with the upcoming launch of an important task within the flame retardant case study: Material and Foam Development. This task, led by Fraunhofer ICT, will involve optimizing formulations for EPS beads as well as PU mixtures, later tested by Steinbacher Dämmstoffe in large scale productions.

SEM_2
SEM image of the cross-section of a foamed strand - Homogeneous, fine-celled structure with even cell size distribution
SEM_1
SEM image of the cross-section of a foamed strand - Open-celled foam with poor foam quality and highly uneven cell size distribution

On the first day, Benedikt Bitzer (Fraunhofer ICT) introduced partners to technical aspects and challenges associated with the foam production processes and discussed essential material property requirements. Additionally, partners responsible for flame retardant development provided updates on their technical progress. On the second day, Thomas Hennequin from TNO conducted a dedicated SSbD session to familiarise industrial partners with proposition for a PLANETS SSbD workflow and collect their suggestions for improvements so it can best fit their innovation practices.
At first glance, applying SSbD criteria to select the safest and most sustainable flame retardant from a pool of alternatives, already in an early development phase, seems logical. But what if the chosen flame retardant adversely affects foam formation? Such a situation could potentially render a lengthy and expensive SSbD evaluation obsolete. Conversely, prioritizing technical performance alone carries risk, as the safety and sustainability of a new flame retardant could unintentionally become worse than current benchmark substances—a regrettable substitution scenario. PLANETS is fully aware of these pitfalls and proactively addresses them by placing functional performance at the core of its SSbD approach, ensuring the flame retardants developed are suitable along the entire value chain, from upstream chemical design to downstream application. Indeed, applying SSbD criteria as early as possible serves the best interests of innovators and companies alike, preventing costly setbacks and potential market failures.
When aiming for a safer planet, a common understanding of methodologies and evaluation criteria among stakeholders is crucial for success. This is exactly why PLANETS partners Fraunhofer ICT, TNO, BASF, PLUS, Budenheim, GreenChemicals, RINA, QSAR Lab, BNN and CEA gathered online and on-site at Steinbacher during sunny spring days in the Austrian alpine town of Erpfendorf.

PLANETS_souffle
PLANETS_Meeting_Erpfendorf_4
5th SSbD workshop 1
News
February 11, 2025

5th Stakeholder Workshop on SSbD 

On 5 December 2024, PLANETS was represented in Brussels by Simon Clavaguera of CEA at the 5th Stakeholder workshop on “Safe and sustainable by design”, held by the Joint Research Center.  
 
PLANETS partners Wouter Fransman of TNO and Wendel Wohlleben of BASF were also present, while other partners attended online.  

The main focus of the workshop was on the outcomes of the second reporting period of the SSbD framework, the lessons learnt and the ways forward before the revision of the framework in 2025.Â