Towards nano’s sustainable development

Written bu Maria Chiara Bonazzi Aspden
So many NGOs, so many positions about nanotechnology’s next industrial revolution. Each non-governmental organization has developed its own stance about the potential benefits and risks to health and environment of nano-sized materials, and quite a few of them have openly ventured into asking broader social and ethical questions about the necessity to avoid a so called “nano-divide” between the new, highly sophisticated patents being produced by the north of this world and the needs of developing countries.
One EC-funded project, though, called NANOCAP (www.nanocap.eu), went further. It set out to put together a selected European group of five environmental NGOs – notably the European Environmental Bureau gathering over 140 member organizations  and the Mediterranean Information Office for Environment, Culture and Sustainable Development (MIO-ECSDE)  with over 115 member NGOs, together representing 15 million citizens -, five trade unions prominently featuring the ETUI and five universities, in order to allow them to develop a deeper understanding about nanotechnologies, build their own positions and come up with some joint recommendations. All of them have since been very active in contributing to crucial policy debates on nanotechnology regulations.
According to these organisations, public transparency about the composition and safety of nanoproducts is paramount at this stage. They claim the industry needs to provide risk information throughout the production chain and take care of risk management. Obviously, the industry and NGOs may have substantially different ideas about how to implement the precautionary principle without stunting technological innovation and business growth.
“Among many potential applications, nanomaterials are considered great
candidate materials for water purification and energy efficiency issues”, says Dr. Thomais Vlachogianni, program officer of MIO-ECSDE, the biggest federation of environmental NGOs in the Mediterranean and a NANOCAP project partner. “A lot of research has focused on that in the past decade. However,
the exceptional properties of nanomaterials make them difficult to study
and standard methods to assess their environmental sustainability give
limited results”.
The MIO-ECSDE NGOs, Dr. Vlachogianni  adds, believe that “a thorough assessment of the technical feasibility, the true economics and environmental and human health
impacts should be delivered before such applications could be
considered sustainable and safe. In the meantime the precautionary
principle should be applied as a fundamental principle of sustainable
and responsible development.”
These issues reflect the positions of NGOs about nanotechnologies regulation. Take for instance the case of the Code of Conduct: the NANOCAP NGOs and trade unions think this is a helpful guide towards the responsible development of nanotechnologies. However, for them this type of voluntary code cannot replace binding legislation, so they call for a good legal framework to manage the potential risks associated with nanotechnology, starting with the labelling of nanoproducts and ingredients and the definition of the limits of occupational exposure to nanoparticles.
A joint outcome of the NANOCAP project is that it recommends the notification of products containing nanoparticles and an obligation for employers to register staff possibly exposed to these products during manufacturing. According to the project’s NGO and trade unions, the industry will have to play an important role in this respect.
With this kind of big premise, a lot of international NGOs are quite keen on the possible great benefits of nanotechnology on the environment. One of their main areas of interest is water purification through filtration devices, such as nanoporous filter and membrane materials to remove contaminants, also to be used in desalination equipment. This could be of crucial importance to the Mediterranean region among others. “Improved membrane processes are key to advanced water purification and desalination technologies –Dr. Vlachogianni says -. Applications of nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes and nanoparticles may have the potential to lead to more efficient, effective, durable and affordable water filtration processes”.
However, she adds, “like with many technologies, the use of nanotechnologies for water purification carries considerable risks. The science behind their ultimate fate, lifecycle behaviour and chemical transformation processes should become crystal clear before we start using them”.
For more info about MIO-ECSDE: http://www.mio-ecsde.org/_uploaded_files/nanovirtualium