The report “Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) Chemicals and Materials – Revised Framework (2025)” by the European Commission Joint Research Centre presents an updated framework to guide the development, assessment, and deployment of chemicals and materials that are both safer for human health and the environment and more sustainable throughout their life cycle.

Building on the original 2022 SSbD framework and subsequent testing by industry, academia, research organisations, and EU Member States, the revised framework strengthens its practical applicability, scientific robustness, and support for innovation. It aligns with major EU policy priorities, including the European Green Deal, the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, industrial competitiveness objectives, and the transition toward circular and climate-neutral economies.

At its core, the SSbD framework aims to integrate safety and sustainability considerations from the earliest stages of innovation. Rather than addressing risks and environmental impacts after products reach the market, the framework encourages proactive design and redesign of chemicals, materials, processes, and products to identify hazards, sustainability impacts, and trade-offs early in development.

The revised framework is structured around four foundational principles:

• considering the full life cycle of chemicals, materials, processes, and products;
• promoting multidisciplinary collaboration across value chains;
• adopting a holistic, iterative, and tiered assessment approach that evolves with increasing data availability; and
• ensuring transparency and traceability throughout the innovation process.

A major enhancement in the 2025 revision is the introduction of a structured scoping analysis, which defines the intended innovation, identifies relevant stakeholders along the life cycle, and establishes the context for assessment. This process enables innovators to tailor assessments according to the maturity of the innovation, the availability of data, and the specific safety and sustainability objectives of the project.

The framework further introduces differentiated SSbD scenarios — simplified, intermediate, and full implementations — allowing organisations of varying capabilities and innovation maturity levels, including SMEs, to progressively apply the framework. This tiered approach recognises that early-stage innovations often face significant uncertainty and limited data availability.

The assessment component of the framework is divided into three complementary pillars:

1. Safety Assessment
   The framework combines evaluation of intrinsic chemical and material properties with assessments of exposure and risk across occupational, consumer, and environmental contexts. It also incorporates process-related safety considerations, recognising that production methods themselves influence overall safety performance.
2. Environmental Sustainability Assessment
   Environmental performance is assessed using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodologies covering raw material extraction, production, use, and end-of-life stages. Simplified screening approaches and benchmarking tools are proposed for lower technology readiness levels to facilitate early-stage application.
3. Socio-Economic Sustainability Assessment
   Compared with the 2022 framework, this section is significantly expanded. It addresses social fairness, supply chain resilience, critical raw materials, life-cycle costs, competitiveness, and financial resilience, recognising that sustainability also depends on economic and social dimensions.

The framework also places strong emphasis on life cycle thinking, stakeholder engagement, and responsible innovation. It encourages collaboration among manufacturers, suppliers, downstream users, regulators, and other actors to ensure that safety, sustainability, functionality, and market requirements are addressed collectively across the value chain.

To support decision-making, the report introduces methods for evaluating trade-offs, uncertainty, and overall SSbD performance, including the use of dashboards and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). These tools help innovators compare alternatives, identify hotspots, and guide iterative improvements over time.

Ultimately, the revised SSbD framework positions safety and sustainability as drivers of industrial innovation and competitiveness. By embedding these considerations into the earliest phases of research, development, and manufacturing, the framework seeks to support the transition toward resilient, future-proof industrial ecosystems capable of delivering safer products, reduced environmental impacts, and long-term societal value.