Safe and sustainable chemicals and materials: a review of sustainability assessment frameworks

Abstract

In the context of the EU Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, a key action regards the development of a framework to identify criteria for safe and sustainable by design chemicals and materials. The integration of safety and sustainability considerations is challenging, and this systematic review investigates how aspects pertaining to sustainability have been implemented in 155 frameworks proposed by scholars, industry, governments and non-governmental organizations. In particular, this review scrutinizes methods, models and indicators for environmental, social and economic aspects in frameworks combining multiple sustainability dimensions. Furthermore, the application of such frameworks to an early stage of chemicals and materials development was also analysed. The review unveiled that the majority of the frameworks are purely conceptual/theoretical, while some attempts are made by others towards providing methods and indicators for the assessment as well as operational procedure of decision support. Life cycle considerations are often remarked as necessary for evaluating the environmental sustainability of chemicals, climate change being the environmental impact mentioned by the majority of frameworks. Social sustainability aspects with quantitative indicators have been proposed only in a few studies so far. Another aspect often disregarded is data uncertainty. Although the reviewed frameworks showed several similarities in structure and aspects covered, indicators often differ significantly. Hence, using one framework instead of another might lead to a different outcome.