Environmental health and safety

Most companies have started monitoring the environmental impacts of their products, services and organisations.

The current need to rapidly reduce the use of fossil raw materials and carbon emissions has led to a rapid increase in the development and use of biobased materials. Likewise, the use of waste streams and recycled materials in product manufacturing is increasing year by year.

Choosing the most sustainable alternative is not straightforward. Suppliers and downstream users of substances and materials all aim for the most sustainable alternative. Yet, alternatives (to conventional fossil-based products) produced with different materials are hard to compare because each alternative brings along different advantages as well as environmental problems. For example, plastic is usually well recyclable but contributes to plastic pollution. Fibre-based products from biomass may degrade well in the environment and have a low carbon footprint, but might lead to deforestation or competition with the food supply. Biodegradable plastics can possibly be recovered as compost but only under very specific conditions and therefore still fall under the Single Use Plastics restrictions.

Furthermore, the use of hazardous and/or volatile additives to give materials specific technical specifications may lead to adverse effects on (indoor air), water, or soil quality.

When evaluating the environmental performance of a product or service it is important to avoid the assessment of a single environmental impact parameter (such as only carbon footprint) but instead, asses all relevant impacts your solution may cause.

At Ecomatters we support clients in assessing their materials or products from several environmental impact perspectives

We support our clients with:

• Screening sustainable solutions from the perspective of critical organisations and authorities
• Advice on the position of biobased and biodegradable (micro)plastics in REACH context
• Perform LCA studies including a multitude of environmental impacts
• Advise on environmental labels and declarations
• Assess the human and environmental hazards and risks of a (recycled) product
• Standards for biobased and biodegradable materials and products