The significant uncertainties associated\ud with the (eco)toxicological risks of engineered nanomaterials\ud pose challenges to the development of nanoenabled\ud products toward greatest possible societal\ud benefit. This paper argues for the use of risk governance\ud approaches to manage nanotechnology risks and\ud sustainability, and considers the links between these\ud concepts. Further, seven risk assessment and management\ud criteria relevant to risk governance are defined:\ud (a) life cycle thinking, (b) triple bottom line, (c) inclusion\ud of stakeholders, (d) risk management, (e) benefit–\ud risk assessment, (f) consideration of uncertainty, and (g) adaptive response. These criteria are used to\ud compare five well-developed nanotechnology frameworks:\ud International Risk Governance Council framework,\ud Comprehensive Environmental Assessment,\ud Streaming Life Cycle Risk Assessment, Certifiable\ud Nanospecific Risk Management and Monitoring System\ud and LICARA NanoSCAN. A Sustainable Nanotechnology\ud Decision Support System (SUNDS) is\ud proposed to better address current nanotechnology risk\ud assessment and management needs, and makes.\ud Stakeholder needs were solicited for further SUNDS\ud enhancement through a stakeholder workshop that\ud included representatives from regulatory, industry and\ud insurance sectors. Workshop participants expressed\ud the need for the wider adoption of sustainability\ud assessment methods and tools for designing greener\ud nanomaterials

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It has been suggested that an important transition in the long-run trajectory of nanotechnology development is a shift from passive to active nanostructures. Such a shift could present different or increased societal impacts and require new approaches for risk assessment. An active nanostructure “changes or evolves its state during its operation,” according to the National Science Foundation’s (2006) Active Nanostructures and Nanosystems grant solicitation. Active nanostructure examples include nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), nanomachines, self-healing materials, targeted drugs and chemicals, energy storage devices, and sensors. This article considers two questions: (a) Is there a “shift” to active nanostructures? (b) How can we characterize the prototypical areas into which active nanostructures may emerge? We build upon the NSF definition of active nanostructures to develop a research publication search strategy, with a particular intent to distinguish between passive and active nanotechnologies. We perform bibliometric analyses and describe the main publication trends from 1995 to 2008. We then describe the prototypes of research that emerge based on reading the abstracts and review papers encountered in our search. Preliminary results suggest that there is a sharp rise in active nanostructures publications in 2006, and this rise is maintained in 2007 and through to early 2008. We present a typology that can be used to describe the kind of active nanostructures that may be commercialized and regulated in the future.

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The use of nano-scale copper oxide (CuO) and basic copper carbonate (Cu(OH)CO) in both ionic and micronized wood preservatives has raised concerns about the potential of these substances to cause adverse humans health effects. To address these concerns, we performed quantitative (probabilistic) human health risk assessment (HHRA) along the lifecycles of these formulations used in antibacterial and antifungal wood coatings and impregnations by means of the EU FP7 SUN project's Decision Support System (SUNDS, www.sunds.gd). The results from the risk analysis revealed inhalation risks from CuO in exposure scenarios involving workers handling dry powders and performing sanding operations as well as potential ingestion risks for children exposed to nano Cu(OH)CO in a scenario involving hand-to-mouth transfer of the substance released from impregnated wood. There are, however, substantial uncertainties in these results, so some of the identified risks may stem from the safety margin of extrapolation to fill data gaps and might be resolved by additional testing. Our stochastic approach successfully communicated the contribution of different sources of uncertainty in the risk assessment. The main source of uncertainty was the extrapolation from short to long-term exposure, which was necessary due to the lack of (sub)chronic in vivo studies with CuO and Cu(OH)CO. Considerable uncertainties also stemmed from the use of default inter- and intra-species extrapolation factors.

Understanding how stakeholders manage risks associated with nanomaterials is a key input to the design of strategies and tools to achieve safe and sustainable nanomanufacturing. The paper presents some results of a study aiming firstly to inform the development of a software decision support tool. Further, we seek also to understand existing tools used by stakeholders as a source of capabilities and potential adaptation into decision support framework and tools. Central research questions of this study are: How is collective decision-making on risk management and sustainable nanomaterials organised? Which aspects are taken into account in this collective decision-making? And what role can a decision support tool play in such decision-making? The paper analyses 13 responses to a questionnaire survey held among participants in a meeting in October 2013 and a series of 27 semistructured telephone interviews conducted from January until April 2014 with decision-makers from mainly European industry and regulators involved in risk management and sustainable manufacturing of nanomaterials. Findings from the study on the social organisation of collective decision-making, aspects taken into account in decisions and potential role of decision support tools are presented.

Mental modelling analysis can be a valuable tool in understanding and bridging cognitive values in multi-stakeholders' communities. It is especially true in situation of emerging risks where significant uncertainty and competing objectives could result in significant difference in stakeholder perspective on the use of new materials and technologies. This paper presents a mental modelling study performed among prospective users of an innovative decision support system for safe and sustainable development of nano-enabled products. These users included representatives of industry and regulators, as well as several insurance specialists and researchers. We present methodology and tools for comparing stakeholder views and objectives in the context of developing a decision support system