EU-Wide Advantages & Opportunities of the call “Accelerate the uptake of LCA for SSbD chemicals and materials” (HORIZON-CL4-INDUSTRY-2025-01-MATERIALS-52)

1. Single Market Access

• 450 + million consumers & 23 million enterprises: Tools, datasets and guidelines delivered under the project can become *de-facto* standards across the entire EU market, instantly multiplying commercial and environmental impact.

• Pan-EU procurement leverage: Alignment with ESPR, EU Ecolabel and Green Claims Directive positions project outputs to be referenced in EU-wide ecolabelling, green public procurement (GPP) and sustainable finance (EU Taxonomy) schemes.

• Trade facilitation: Harmonised LCA methodologies reduce technical barriers for intra-EU trade of chemicals, materials and downstream products, shortening time-to-market and compliance costs.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• Mandatory multinational consortia under Horizon Europe unlock complementary competences (chemistry, AI, SSbD, social sciences) that are rarely co-located in a single country.

• Access to EU research infrastructures (EPLCA, INCITE, EIGL, ESFRI facilities) and industrial clusters (e.g. EIT RawMaterials Co-Location Centres) accelerates data generation and pilot testing.

• Engagement with ongoing EU projects/partnerships (PARC, ORIENTING, IRISS, VERIFICA, PEFCR pilots) ensures immediate uptake of best practice and avoids duplication.

3. Alignment with EU Policy Drivers

• European Green Deal & Zero-Pollution Ambition: The call explicitly underpins flagship regulations (ESPR, Net-Zero Industry, Critical Raw Materials Act, Batteries Regulation). Deliverables can therefore be cited directly in delegated acts, technical guidance and policy briefs.

• Digital Europe & Data Spaces: FAIR LCA datasets feed the European Platform on LCA (EPLCA) and can interoperate with forthcoming *Common European Data Spaces for Manufacturing & Green Deal*.

• Social dimension: Incorporation of SSH expertise strengthens alignment with *Just Transition* and *Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive* metrics.

4. Regulatory Harmonisation & Legal Certainty

• ‘One-Substance-One-Assessment’: Contributing data/tools to this EU initiative reduces multi-agency duplication and gives beneficiaries early insight into future assessment criteria.

• EU-level validation pathway: Methods co-developed with the EF Technical Advisory Board gain quasi-official status, lowering subsequent certification costs for all EU firms, especially SMEs.

5. European Innovation Ecosystem & Infrastructure

• World-class RTOs & universities: Easy collaboration with Fraunhofer, TNO, VTT, SINTEF, etc., which already host PEF/LCA competence centres.

• Living Labs & Digital Twins: Horizon Europe’s “Twin Transition” actions, EIT Manufacturing testbeds and regional factories of the future can embed the new LCA tools in real production environments.

• Talent pipeline: Project-funded training modules can be mainstreamed via ESF+, ERASMUS+ Knowledge Alliances and EIT RawMaterials Academy, addressing the EU skills gap in LCA & SSbD.

6. Funding Synergies

• Cascade financing & pilots: LIFE Clean Energy Transition, Innovation Fund (large-scale demos) and Interregional Innovation Investments (I3) can bankroll commercial deployment of project results.

• Blended finance: EIB & InvestEU Sustainable Infrastructure windows are inclined to invest in projects whose environmental claims are backed by EU-endorsed LCA evidence.

• Regional leverage: Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) can co-fund regional adoption of the developed tools, boosting cohesion policy impact.

7. Scale, Impact & EU Leadership

• Economies of scale: Developing one set of interoperable, multilingual LCA tools instead of 27 national versions drastically cuts per-company compliance costs—directly addressing the call’s outcome of “significant cost reduction” for SMEs.

• Global standard-setting: By embedding planetary-boundary metrics into EU regulations, the project positions Europe as the *de-facto* global reference for SSbD and circularity assessments.

• Carbon border relevance: Robust EU LCA data strengthen the CBAM mechanism and future trade negotiations, enhancing strategic autonomy.

8. Strategic Tips for Applicants

1. Choose chemicals/materials of EU strategic interest (e.g. PFAS replacements, bio-based polymers, critical raw material substitutes) to maximise policy relevance.

2. Plan for open-source & commercial layers: Offer a basic free LCA module (supporting SMEs) and premium analytics services (revenue stream) to show sustainability of the business case.

3. Integrate with standardisation bodies (CEN/CENELEC, ISO TC207) early, ensuring rapid codification of project outputs.

4. Allocate >5 % budget to training & stakeholder outreach across all Member States, boosting uptake and evaluation scores under ‘Impact’.

5. Leverage Lump-Sum Grant simplicity to focus resources on R&I rather than financial reporting, making it attractive for high-tech SMEs.

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Bottom line: Operating at EU scale transforms an LCA-for-SSbD project from a niche scientific exercise into a single-market game-changer that shapes regulation, unlocks new value chains, and cements Europe’s technological sovereignty in sustainable chemicals and materials.