The Strategic Research and Innovation Plan presents research and innovation needs to shift to sustainable and safe chemicals and materials to address planetary boundaries and protect the environment and people.
On 26 October, the European Commission (EC) published a Strategic Research and Innovation Plan (SRIP) for safe and sustainable chemicals and materials with the objective of accelerating the shift to safe and sustainable chemicals and materials. The SRIP highlights crucial research and innovation needs to boost the protection of people and the planet against hazardous substances and aims to guide funders in their investments across EU, national and private funding programmes. The SRIP was announced in the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) adopted in 2020. The CSS objective is to address the challenge of the utilisation and production of chemicals to address societal needs, while “respecting the planetary boundaries and avoiding harm to humans and the environment”. Due to the increasing complexity of manufacturing and global supply chains of some chemicals and materials, it is even more challenging for the EU to ensure access to essential substances, while guaranteeing the achievement of climate-neutrality and circular economy. The development of a strategy in R&I for sustainable solutions is, therefore, essential to address planetary boundaries as well as an economic opportunity for the chemical industry of the EU to gain a competitive advantage and to win consumer confidence.
The recently published SRIP follows a life-cycle approach since chemicals and materials are used in many sectors and consumer goods. Thus, the identified R&I areas can contribute to increasing the overall sustainability of these value chains and products. It will support several UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), namely, Sustainable Consumption and Production, Good Health and Well-being, Clean Water and Sanitation, Food security, Health, and Sustainable Cities.
The SRIP results from extensive stakeholder consultations and, consequently, considers the priorities of authorities, scientists and companies. Accordingly, it highlights the following R&I areas that are essential for making chemicals and materials safe and sustainable:
- Cross-cutting aspects that are crucial to boosting future research’s impact, including access to quality data through FAIR data and open platforms as well as validated innovative tools to speed up innovation.
- R&I challenges are linked to the design phase and based on the work in developing a safe and sustainable by design framework (SSbD), which is foreseen in the action plan of the CSS and which should contribute to the Green Deal ambitions, going beyond current regulatory compliance. In this regard, a report was published in July 2022 that proposed such a framework. The SSbD framework aims to “support the design, development, production and use of chemicals and materials that focuses on providing a desirable function (or service), while avoiding or minimising harmful impacts to human health and the environment”.
- Safe and sustainable production processes and technologies that include R&I demands to increase safety, energy efficiency and resource efficiency/circularity.
- The use of chemicals and materials requires R&I to enable a reliable and robust assessment of functionality, performance, safety, and sustainability, including exposure and modelling, hazard, and risk assessment.
- R&I needs arising from the pressure to decontaminate and remediate pollution caused by chemicals and materials.
- The creation of a monitoring framework with R&I indicators to assess the SRIP implementation.
The EC will refer to the SRIP for safe and sustainable chemicals and materials as one of the main strategies in the upcoming Horizon Europe work programme 2023-2024, which should be adopted before the end of 2022. The EC will create a monitoring system for the implementation to maximise the SRIP’s impact. The idea is to come up with an overview to assess which part of Horizon Europe funding is devoted to R&I activities related to chemicals and materials.
The SRIP and the upcoming monitoring system will consequently guide research and innovation funders in their decisions on investments across EU, national and private funding programmes.