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Environmental Defense’s response to Coalition’s Open Letter on the Nano Risk Framework

Monday, April 16, 2007
Posted in Environment Sustainability Technology | Tagged Environment, Sustainability, Technology

Environmental Defense received an open letter from a coalition of civil society and labor groups regarding the draft Nano Risk Framework (http://www.nanoriskframework.com/) developed by Environmental Defense and DuPont.� The Framework proposes a process to identify and reduce potential health, safety and environmental risks of nano-scale materials across all lifecycle stages.�

The authors of the open letter believe that a mandatory program to regulate potential risks from nanomaterials is needed.� Environmental Defense wholeheartedly agrees, and has stated so publicly and repeatedly over the past several years.� The Framework is not intended to replace government action, and nothing in the Framework absolves governments of their responsibility to ensure that the products of nanotechnology do not harm human health or the environment.� In fact, Environmental Defense engaged in this process in large part because of insufficient government action to address the potential risks of nanotechnology.� Far from viewing the Framework as an endpoint in the policy process, our intent is to help to speed the development of a meaningful and effective government policy.� In the interim, the Framework is intended to provide useful guidance to companies that adopt it on how to address nanomaterials until government regulations are developed.���

Environmental Defense and DuPont have been open about the Framework since the outset of the project, discussing project goals, the overall outline of the Framework, and sharing early drafts with a wide variety of audiences.� The Framework was broadly released as a draft in February, with an open invitation to provide feedback to Environmental Defense and DuPont.� We are now in the process of reviewing that feedback and will release an updated version of the Framework this summer, along with examples of how it has been applied in practice. We welcome additional feedback on how to improve it.

http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?contentID=6280