Product Sustainability Summit Europe 2024

Moderator

• Corporate sustainability is a multi-faceted topic and there are almost as many definitions as there are interested parties. Navigating this ocean of regulations, guidance, reporting standards, frameworks and acronyms is a complex and ever changing challenge. However, there are some certainties:
  • Sustainability is here to stay and is no longer an aspiration, it is business driver with its own impacts, risks and opportunities
  • Corporate sustainability reporting is becoming more and more codified
  • Stakeholders across the value and supply chains from investors to consumers are becoming much more educated and vociferous as to their expectations
  • Sustainable products, strategic sustainability objectives and regulatory compliance are completely intertwined
• In this session we will focus on the regulatory compliance obligations driving this interface.

• Background and context for this new wave of EU regulation: EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) 
• Risk or Opportunity?
• What in practice it has meant

• Assovernici and its commitment to sustainability
• Relevance of the Assovernici sustainability report and key findings
• Beyond compliance: how the report stimulates companies in their sustainability journey

• Experiences and learnings from testing JRC’s SSbD framework on industrial innovation processes
• Lifting synergies with existing sustainability assessment tools such as Portfolio Sustainability Assessment (PSA) by WBCSD
• Cefic’s industry guidance to approach development of Safe and Sustainably by Design solutions that are safe and provide environmental, social, or economic benefits

Moderator

• Reflections on convergence of substitution/alternatives assessment and sustainable chemistry
• During chemical selection which sustainability attributes are being considered?
• Are there opportunities convergence on measurable attributes

• Substitution challenges faced by downstream users of chemicals
• Current developments in the EU and DUCC’s views
• How to speed up substitution while boosting innovation?

• SSbD design principles: An opportunity to strengthen existing sustainability portfolio management assessment tools
• Key organizational levers: Governance,  digitalization, change of mindset, training and network of experts
• Key learnings of practicing the sustainable portfolio management assessment

• Terminology and action areas - for common understanding and objectifying circularity strategies
• Circularity indicators and methods - for circularity performance and product stewardship 
• Business model structure - for governance and for sharing value and costs in multi-actor value networks 
• 59000 and how it provides the keys to secure circularity transitions in product life cycles

• The development of new bio-based packaging solutions which can improve the recyclability, specially of food packaging, is critical in the context of the Circular Economy and the European Green Deal,  as it is to ensure the safety and sustainability of new products from an early stage, to achieve safer and greener materials.
• The experience gained in the implementation of the SSbD Framework at Preserve can serve as an example in the development of new bioplastic materials