Description
This second virtual workshop built on the first NSC workshop on SSbD scenarios held in June 2025, which established how a scenario can be characterised through novelty, exposure, severity, environmental sustainability, economic scope and immediacy. The scenario concept has since been taken up by the Joint Research Centre in the revised SSbD Framework, where it links the scoping stage to a tailored safety and sustainability assessment.
The session examined how to describe an SSbD scenario, the tailoring rules attached to it, and how to decide which tailored approach best suits a given innovation case. Innovators from DESIDERATA, PLANETS, SSbD4CheM and SUNRISE contributed real-world examples. In moderated breakout groups, participants worked through each case to establish SSbD maturity, market pull and push, expected commercial value, technical and commercial probability of success, and the return that additional SSbD work would be expected to deliver. The results were then compared against six proposed archetypal SSbD scenarios.
Danail Hristozov (GreenDecision), chair of the NSC Working Group on SSbD, opened the workshop to an audience of more than 50 international participants drawn mainly from academia, large industry, SMEs, consultancies, regulators and EU institutions. Wendel Wohlleben (BAuA), co-chair of the working group, presented the approach to tailoring SSbD implementation through scenarios, including a newly developed spreadsheet for estimating the impact of building SSbD into an innovation project plan.
The workshop was organised as a collaborative effort between four EU-funded projects. The full presentation materials are openly available on Zenodo.
Why Attend?
The workshop brought together innovators, researchers, regulators and industry representatives to test a business-focused method for deciding how much SSbD assessment an innovation case actually warrants. Its outcome gives innovators clearer arguments to bring to management when scoping SSbD work, and offers a practical bridge between the SSbD scoping stage and a proportionate assessment.
Relevant for
Innovators, researchers, industry representatives, consultants and regulators working on the implementation of Safe and Sustainable by Design in advanced materials and chemicals.