LRI SSbD1 – Multi-Criteria Decision Tool for Early-Stage Screening and Trade-Off Assessment in SSbD Innovation

Background

The transition to a sustainable, circular economy requires integrating Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) principles across the entire product innovation lifecycle. Real-world product development often involves navigating complex trade-offs such as balancing hazard reduction with material performance, or environmental impacts with economic feasibility. Early screening can prevent costly redesigns and regulatory bottlenecks, but truly sustainable innovation requires addressing multiple trade-offs among hazard, exposure, cost, and broader sustainability impacts. Current tools often focus on individual parameters in isolation, limiting their practical utility in early innovation stages where multiple decisions must be made under uncertainty.

To ensure all aspects and parameters are considered the development of a decision-support open-source and open-access tool that enables early-phase, transparent trade-off analysis across multiple SSbD dimensions would support industry, avoid undesired redesigns, reduce regulatory risks, and speed up time-to-market for safer, more sustainable products.

This RfP seeks development for a “Trade-off analysing tool” that could offer immediate impact while aligning with long-term SSbD objectives as well as policy and regulatory shifts towards more responsible design practices.

Objectives

This project is looking to deliver a practical, transparent, and adaptable early-stage screening, but also decision-support tool for further stages of product innovations with immediate applicability for innovators.

The key objectives of this project are to:

Support early-stage screening by integrating multiple design-relevant parameters, including safety, exposure, cost, functionality, performance, sustainability, and socioeconomic dimensions.
Allow user with customizable weighting of criteria to reflect company- or sector-specific priorities (e.g., product performance, compliance targets, circularity).
Facilitate internal alignment within companies by connecting scientific assessment with innovation strategy.
Ensure full transparency on uncertainty, how trade-offs are assessed, decisions are ranked, and recommendations are derived. Propose a Multicriteria Decision Analysis based on the recommendations from Cefic report, JRC report and discussions with the Project Monitoring team.

Scope

A literature review of existing initiatives to avoid duplication and identify potential synergies. (1) (2)
Design and prototype an open-source, open-accessdigital tool that:
1. Enables structured, transparent trade-off analysis of several (or many) indicators/descriptors (e.g. JRC report, Cefic report, etc.) that jointly represent all SSbD dimensions.
2. Allows custom weighting of criteria according to sectoral or organizational targets (with appropriate documentation/justification).
3. Offers full transparency in its algorithms and rationale for scoring, ranking, or recommending design choices.
Embed screening logic tailored to different innovation stages, supporting tiered assessment:
1. Emphasize early-phase applicability with qualitative indicators (such as better/worse/unknown) and represent the uncertainty ranges when aggregating them. The tools should be applicable to indicators/descriptors tables developed by Horizon projects.
2. Work towards quantitative indicators as development phases increase.
3. Guidance functions that flag trade-offs with high sensitivity on the current input data to prioritize further data acquisition and/or prioritization of the design space.
Pilot the applicability of the tool through sector-specific cases:
1. Demonstrate how the tool supports early decision-making aligned with SSbD tiered framework.
2. Select at least two case studies in collaboration with industrial stakeholders representing different sectors (e.g., chemicals, advanced materials, consumer goods).
3. Include scenarios or case-based examples demonstrating the tool's functionality, covering diverse SSbD dimensions.
4. Include proposal and estimated cost for maintenance, hosting, upgrades and upkeep of the tool
Deliver supporting documentation, including:
1. Technical report detailing assumptions, scoring algorithms, and decision logic.
2. A user manual and training materials.
3. Recommendations for future scaling and integration with relevant digital databases (e.g., PCF, LCA, hazard datasets). Guidance and estimated cost for long-term maintenance, hosting and upkeep.

Out of scope

Development of IATA-style guidance on methods and descriptors for data acquisition
Development of new LCA approaches
Method development of single indicators
Duplication with existing initiatives (literature review, horizon Europe mapping, could help identify ongoing efforts).

Deliverables

Functional prototype of the tool (early phase).
Functional prototype of the tool (later phase), with applicability piloted through at least two case studies
Customization interface for company-specific use (to allow adjustment of weighing criteria).
Documentation, user guide, and training material.
Final presentation to relevant stakeholders, including regulatory representatives.
Final report consisting of executive summary, a main part including pilot findings and lessons learned, and a detailed bibliography.

It is expected that the findings will be developed into at least one peer reviewed publication, following poster(s) and presentation(s) at suitable scientific conference(s).

Partnering / Co-funding

Applicants should provide an indication of additional partners and funding opportunities that can be appropriately leveraged as part of their proposal. Partners can include, but are not limited to industry, government/regulatory organizations, research institutes, etc. Statements from potential partners should be included in the proposal package.

Fit with LRI objectives / Possible regulatory and policy impact involvements / Dissemination

Applicants should provide information on the fit of their proposal with LRI objectives and an indication on how and where they could play a role in the regulatory and policy areas. Dissemination plans should also be laid down.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: May 31st, 2026 at 11:59 PM CET.

Please see www.cefic-lri.org/funding-opportunities/apply-for-a-grant/ for general LRI objectives information, project proposal form and further guidance for grant applications. Please note that, if awarded the project, the institute must be able to accept Belgian Law (or an equivalent European legal framework) in the contract. If there are questions, please email lri@cefic.be.

Background

Objectives

Scope

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