Speaker
Claudia Som
(EMPA)
Description
Additional Authors: Roland Hischier, Empa,[email protected]
Bernd Nowack, Empa,[email protected]
Ingrid Hincapie, Empa, [email protected]
Dominic Notter, Empa, [email protected]
Harrie E. Buist, TNO,[email protected]
Wouter Fransman, TNO,[email protected]
Jörg Güttinger, NCB,[email protected]
Abstract: Small and medium sized enterprizes (SMEs) often lack resources to do a detailed assessment of benefits and risks of a new nanoproduct along its life cycle. The EU FP7 project LICARA has elaborated guidelines for developing safe and sustainable nanoproducts in order to support the decision making of SMEs. The guidelines intend to facilitate the communication within the value chain. SMEs should be supported to document their efforts for best practices and to communicate with their suppliers, clients, consumers and the authorities.
The first part of the LICARA guidelines provides a stepwise approach and raises questions that can be answered qualitatively with a relatively low effort. It provides some background information that is currently only available as fragments in scientific literature but not in a condensed form. The second part describes the accompanying tool LICARA nanoSCAN, which enables SMEs to take a transparent more in-depth look by conducting an assessment in a semi-quantitative way. The third part provides information for further steps.
The guideline is based on the scientific work of the research institutes TNO, Empa, RAS and the experiences of the private sector companies NCB, SNT, Freso, Nanothinx and AGPYME, which have been partners in the consortium of LICARA.
Primary author
Claudia Som
(EMPA)
Co-authors
Esther Zondervan-van den Beuken
(TNO)
Toom van Harmelen
(TNO)