Safe and Sustainable Product Design - Basel

A SaferWorldbyDesign Workshop, 6 November 2024, Technology Park Basel, Hochbergerstrasse 60C, 4057 Basel

Overview

In this workshop we will discuss methods that can be used in the early stages of product design to effectively support the early embedding of human safety, environmental safety and sustainability into product choices. To achieve this goal, full use of existing data, models and knowledge should be leveraged into providing relevant information supporting assessment and decision goals between alternatives. Such data needs to be integrated with evidence-weighting and scoring schemes, including uncertainty, to reach initial decisions on alternatives and to plan for a subsequent refinement phase. The findings may include recommendations for generating the most meaningful and useful data to address gaps and uncertainty.

Questions to be addressed include:

Can I substitute a less hazardous ingredient to achieve a required product function?
How do I proceed with my product analysis in initial “data poor” situations?
What are the environmental impacts of my product design alternatives?
Can I use life cycle analysis in my early product design and decision making?
How do I weight information across different impact factors?
How do I use exposure information across the product life cycle supporting risk and impact assessment?

The program will consist of two components:

Lectures on methods, best practices and case studies
Hands-on workshop working with data and tools

Lecture Program

08.15 Welcome Coffee
08.45 Introduction and Overview, Barry Hardy (Edelweiss Connect)
09.00 Safe and Sustainable by Design Framework, Milica Velimorovic (VITO)
09.30 Hazard Characterisation using New Approach Methods, Indre Piragyte-Langa Oliva (Edelweiss Connect)
10.00 Life Cycle Assessment, Thomas Arblaster (University of Leiden)
10.30 Coffee Break
11.00 Data Science and Artificial Intelligence supporting Product Design, Josef Spillner (ZHAW)
11.30 PARC SSbD Case Study, Joanke van Dijk (EMPA)
12.00 Swiss Public Health Perspective, Sabine Frey (Swiss Federal Office of Public Health)
12.30 – 13.30 Lunch

Workshop

13.30 Organising Product Characterisation Data
14.30 Hazard Characterisation of Product Materials
15.30 Environmental Scoring of Product Ingredients and Substitutions
16.30 Reception

Registration

Participation in the workshop requires no registration fee. Attendance in person will be subject to confirmation by the organisers. The option of virtual participation to attend the workshop lectures will be supported.