News Details

On 6 March 2026, the European Commission adopted Commission Recommendation (EU) 2026/510, revising the European assessment framework for Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) chemicals and materials. The Recommendation was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 10 March 2026.

The updated framework aims to guide research, innovation, and industrial development toward chemicals and materials that integrate safety, environmental sustainability, and functionality throughout their lifecycle. It supports the objectives of the EU Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability and broader initiatives that promote a toxic-free and circular economy.

The SSbD framework is voluntary and is intended to assist Member States, industry, research organisations, and innovators in embedding safety and sustainability considerations at the earliest stages of product and process design.

Revised Assessment Framework for Chemicals and Materials

The Recommendation updates the earlier framework introduced in Commission Recommendation (EU) 2022/2510, incorporating feedback from stakeholders and testing carried out across multiple industrial value chains.

The revised framework provides a structured methodology for evaluating chemicals and materials throughout their lifecycle. Key elements include:

• Scoping analysis to define system boundaries, design objectives, and decision rules for chemicals, materials, processes, or products.
• Three assessment scenarios reflecting the maturity of innovation and available data: simplified screening, intermediate evaluation, and full assessment.
• Safety assessment, covering hazard identification, hazard characterisation, exposure assessment, and risk characterisation.
• Environmental sustainability assessment, based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodologies aligned with the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) approach.
• Socio-economic sustainability assessment, addressing factors such as human rights, working conditions, supply-chain vulnerabilities, and life-cycle costs.

The framework is designed to be iterative, allowing assessments to evolve as new data becomes available during the innovation process.

Expected Actions from Stakeholders

The Commission encourages stakeholders to apply the SSbD framework to research and innovation activities relating to chemicals and materials. Recommended actions include:

• integrating SSbD principles into research and innovation (R&I) and product development processes,
• ensuring the availability of high-quality, interoperable data for safety and sustainability assessments,
• collecting data across the entire value chain, and
• documenting assessments in a transparent and traceable manner.

The Commission also intends to promote the framework through research programmes, innovation initiatives, and collaboration platforms in order to support the development of safer and more sustainable chemicals and materials in Europe.