After the successful launch of the GRAPHERGIA Hub with our first webinar dedicated to Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) management in January 2025, last Friday the 28th of March, we celebrated the second GRAPHERGIA Hub Webinar Series: “Sustainability Assessment and Eco-Design for Graphene-Based Products“, moderated by Mona Marill, Project Manager at AUSTRALO, and hosted by Matteo Maccanti, LCA Analyst at Next Technology Tecnotessile, and Despoina Batsouli, Head of Advanced Materials Division at Adamant Composites.
The online event was dedicated to discussing sustainability principles to evaluate the environmental and socio-economic methodologies for products’ eco-design. Matteo and Despoina presented the eco-design principles for materials, process and development phases, while sharing insights from the key methodologies used for sustainability research, including Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA).
ESPR: Eco-Design for Sustainable Products Regulation
Eco-Design for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) is the corner stone for the European Commission for European industrial development.
Eco-design seeks to reduce the environmental impact of products and to foster their sustainability:
- Design for disassembly and recyclability.
- Reduced use of materials.
- Use of sustainable materials.
- Energy consumption reduction.
- Design for durability for instance with a lifetime guarantee.
- Design for reuse.
In the GRAPHERGIA project we have a Work Package (WP) dedicated to the eco-design analysis and its implementation, our Work Package 6 (WP6) ‘Life cycle assessment, sustainability and eco-design approach’, led by our Italian partner Next Technology Tecnotessile. Also, the eco-design principles are piloted in our three demo cases:
- All-in-one self-charging textile capable of energy harvesting and storage, led by Born Knitting Engineers.
- Self-powered structurally integrated sensor for aerospace structures, led by Adamant Composites.
- Advanced graphene-based LIB module prototype for space applications, led by Pleione Energy.
Sustainability is a beacon for eco-design, since it is a way of thinking that considers the economic, environmental and social consequences of a product or a process throughout its life cycle. There are three key methodologies to implement sustainability in the design of products and processes: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA).
You can discover more about these methodologies in the recording of our webinar that you can watch below in case you missed it:
For further details, you can also check the presentation used by our partners:
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Open in new tab GRAPHERGIA’s Social Sustainability Survey
The webinar was divided into three parts. The first of them was focused on the eco-design principles applied in graphene-enabled innovations; the second offered insights about sustainability assessment methodologies for products eco-design; while in the third part, Matteo shared a survey to collect the participants’s feedback about Social Life Cycle Assessment.
We encourage you to answer our Social Life Cycle Assessment survey that is addressed to two type of respondents:
- Companies:
The questionnaire counts with four main sections. The first one addresses general data about the product. The second one addresses the working conditions within the company. The third one refers to the relationship the company has towards the local community. The fourth section addresses the relationship the company has with suppliers and other main actors along the supply chain.
- Workers:
The questionnaire comprises multiple inquiries that delve into social aspects such as wages, working conditions, health, and safety in the workplace, among others. Your honest responses are crucial for obtaining valuable and accurate insights.
FILL OUT OUR SLCA SURVEY HERE!
Your input is the most valuable factor of this research. Thank you very much for your participation.
More about GRAPHERGIA Hub
GRAPHERGIA Hub connects stakeholders across European, national, and local landscapes. Whether you’re a researcher, entrepreneur, or industry leader, the GRAPHERGIA consortium runs a dynamic space for collaboration, knowledge exchange, and strategic partnerships for individuals or teams passionate about driving innovation in graphene-enabled energy solutions, novel smart textiles or advancing future battery technologies.
In GRAPHERGIA, we host a webinar series dedicated to three domains: intellectual property rights, technical webinars and scientific sessions. The aim of our webinar series is to share with you insights and findings from the GRAPHERGIA project empowering future energy harvesting and storage with graphene.
Connect in the GRAPHERGIA Hub, and become a ‘hubber’ to join our journey towards a more sustainable future!