“Avoid” is not enough – An overview of approaches to substance safety in sustainable material selection methods for product development
M.M. Weber (TU Delft - Design for Sustainability)
J.I.J.C. de Koning (TU Delft - Design for Sustainability)
R. Balkenende (TU Delft - Design for Sustainability)
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Abstract
Existing material selection methods seem to offer limited support for addressing substance safety in practice, as the focus remains on intrinsic material properties and less on exposure risk. This hinders Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) efforts that can prevent use and accumulation of substances of concern (SoCs) across product lifecycles in a circular economy. This study reviews 29 sustainable material selection methods to evaluate how they do support substance safety. Results show that substance safety is generally embedded within the broader sustainability realm without explicit risk or lifecycle-based assessment. Of the four steps that can be distinguished in material selection, most methods support the steps ‘Establishing a set of candidates’ and ‘Comparing candidates’ but the steps ‘Formulating selection criteria’ and ‘Choosing suitable candidates’ are often unsupported, leaving critical substance safety trade-offs unaddressed. The importance of mindsets such as systemic thinking and iterative reflection is recognized but underrepresented. The findings highlight the need to adapt existing methods with better guidance and risk integration to advance SSbD in material selection.
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