European Commission holds workshop on safety and sustainability criteria for chemicals

On March 22, 2022, the European Commission held its second stakeholders’ workshop on “Safe and Sustainable by design (SSbD) criteria for chemicals and materials”. The development of criteria to assess the safety and sustainability of chemical substances is one of the main actions under the EU’s Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability.  While the relation of these criteria to specific regulatory initiatives is still unclear, they will be of immediate relevance for non-legislative initiatives and set an official definition that may serve as a basis for compliance obligations at a later stage.

At the workshop, European Commission representatives and stakeholders from civil society organisations and the chemicals industry discussed the overall framework for the assessment of the safety and sustainability of chemicals. The Commission expects to hold a follow-up webinar in April, where it will respond to the feedback provided by stakeholders.

The current proposal by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre consists of a 4-step process. Three of the steps would relate to the safety of a chemical. Specifically, they would address its properties, its processing, and its uses. The fourth and final step would assess the environmental performance of a chemical from a life-cycle perspective.

The workshop is the second one of a series of three. A first workshop, held on 19 March 2022, presented the framework and timeline for the development of the SSbD criteria. A third and final workshop will be held in the third quarter of 2022, where specific case studies will be discussed before publication by the Commission of the criteria. The case studies currently under consideration are non-phthalate plasticisers, surfactants, and halogen-free flame retardants.

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