Tassinari, Oliver; Bradley, Jurron; Holman, Michael --- "The Evolving Nanotechnology Environmental, Health, and Safety Landscape: A Business Perspective" [2010] ELECD 718; in Hodge, A. Graeme; Bowman, M. Diana; Maynard, D. Andrew (eds), "International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies

Editor(s): Hodge, A. Graeme; Bowman, M. Diana; Maynard, D. Andrew

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848446731

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: The Evolving Nanotechnology Environmental, Health, and Safety Landscape: A Business Perspective

Author(s): Tassinari, Oliver; Bradley, Jurron; Holman, Michael

Number of pages: 28

Extract:

10 The evolving nanotechnology
environmental, health, and safety
landscape: a business perspective
Oliver Tassinari, Jurron Bradley and
Michael Holman


The emerging technologies business consultancy firm Lux Research has
tracked the significance and impact of Environmental Health and Safety
(EHS) issues on nanotechnology commercialization for a number of years.
Through a series of analyses (see, for example, Lux Research, 2006, 2007,
2008a, 2008b, 2009) the firm has provided insight into the EHS issues
facing companies investing in nanotechnology, including evaluating the
state of the science, identifying critical knowledge gaps, and advising the
business community on prudent courses of action. This chapter is based
on the firm's 2009 report Nanotech's Evolving Environmental, Health, and
Safety Landscape: The Regulations Are Coming (Lux Research, 2009).


10.1 INTRODUCTION

The successful commercialization of nanomaterials will depend on manag-
ing three aspects of environmental, health, and safety (EHS) issues: real
risks, perceptual risks and regulations. Real risks ­ associated with the
quantifiable possibility of new materials, products and processes to cause
harm ­ have received increasing attention within the global research com-
munity in recent years (see, for example, Lux Research, 2006, 2007, 2008a,
2008b. See also National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, 2003;
European Commission, 2005; Maynard et al., 2006; National Science and
Technology Council, 2008). Research efforts have included continued
progress on data-gathering efforts and a push towards global coordina-
tion and standardization of risk assessment in order to assist regulators
enact and implement nanotechnology-specific policies (Murashov and
Howard, 2008). More recently there has ...