What does product sustainability mean for tomorrow’s fire safety?
pinfa webinar series
On 7 July 2021, pinfa convened 140 live participants for a webinar on product sustainability and fire safety. Participants represented a wide range of industries, including chemicals, plastics, energy, transports, construction, as well as researchers and fire safety experts. Discussions emphasised the challenges of addressing new fire safety challenges, such as batteries, composite materials and changing lifestyles, whilst ensuring sustainable, safe and recyclable flame-retardant materials and consumer products.
Online consultations of webinar participants showed that a very large majority consider that Green Deal policies and the new EU Chemicals Strategy will significantly impact choices in flame retardant chemistry.
Keynotes
Sylvie Lemoine, Executive Director, Cefic Product Stewardship, explained that the EU Green Deal targets energy and climate change, Critical Raw Materials, recycling and the “zero pollution” ambition.
Margaret McNamee, Professor of Fire Safety Engineering at Lund University, Sweden and International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS), underlined that fire remains a societal problem, with 180 000 to 300 000 fire deaths annually worldwide, and 3 500 deaths and 70 000 fire injuries per year in Europe.
Panel discussion
The panel discussion underlined that sustainability is not just about hazard, but also about different chemistries, carbon footprint, recycling and social impacts.