Speakers at a recent workshop, “Compliance Requirements and Market Impact of the EU Definition of Nanomaterial,” organized by the Nanotechnology Industries Association (NIA), said the definition could help build public confidence and give companies more security as they move forward with nanotechnology-enabled products.
The definition was adopted in order to distinguish nanoscale materials from those at standard scale in environmental and health legislation.
According to Jaideep Raje, from the consulting firm Lux Research, the lack of a definition had encouraged negative perceptions of the technology and made some companies hesitant to invest in it. Raje added that the definition would help in the “proactive tackling of the perceptual risk”.
Raje also said, “regulation [of nanosubstances] is coming and will impact the business one way or another,” but regulation could help companies clarify both risks and benefits of nanomaterials. Steffi Friedrichs, the director of NIA, said the definition should be viewed as a “clarification, not a separation of a certain class of substances.”
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Fonte: Meridian Institute
