Hello everyone,
Starting February 2025, I have the privilege to co-chair the Network for Safety and sustainability of Chemicals and materials (NSC) Working Group (WG) ‘Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD), Innovation & Regulation’.
I would like to thank the NSC Steering Group for nominating me to this new role. With my OECD, regulatory, policy and SSbD practical experience, I hope to strengthen and build bridges between science, policy and industry. In my experience, the SSbD approach has the potential to accelerate the industrial transition towards safer and more sustainable chemicals, materials, processes and products and circular value chains. Nevertheless, in order to achieve the speed, efficacy and efficiency needed to support this urgently required transition, an effective science-policy-industry interface is needed. It is essential that the knowledge generated in research with regards to safety and sustainability supports policy and more importantly is taken up by industry. Bridges are needed between research, policy, investment, and industry through closer collaboration. But also internal collaboration is needed within companies along the life cycle of products. This means a stronger alignment between research and development (R&D), sustainability, design, business, and production departments.
The NSC WG SSbD, Innovation & Regulation can support in breaking silos and bringing the field of innovation closer to the fields of safety and sustainability (environmental, social, economic). Policy needs to set goals, related criteria and methodology, and incentives; academia and research need to support the development of knowledge, data, and tools needed and provide critical interdisciplinary education; and industry has to be transparent in its information on chemical impacts and choices and institutionalize it in a systematic and thoughtful way. I look forward to co-creating solutions to deal with the safety and sustainability challenges as we transition to more advanced/innovative materials with the NSC community and beyond.
Lya G. Soeteman-Hernández