The course Safe and Sustainable by Design aims to provide students with the theoretical and practical knowledge required to evaluate or design production processes with minimized health and environmental impact, within safety-sustainability-oriented and innovation-driven frameworks. The course aims to integrate hazard, safety, safety assessment, organic chemistry principles, considering industrial chemistry concepts, green chemistry metrics, and circular bioeconomy strategies together with in line with the Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD)
approach. The different concepts will be integrated to support a comprehensive understanding of the interconnections among sustainability, safety, and environmental impact.

The objectives of the course are divided as follows:

i) Knowledge and understanding
The main goal will be the capability to understand the theoretical, the principles and the procedures that allow to link safety and sustainability within production processes or novel products development.
In detail the following are the main objectives

• Acquire the theoretical knowledge necessary to understand the relationships between production processes, potential pollutant emissions, and their effects on human health.
• Acquire the procedural knowledge required to estimate the impacts on an exposed population resulting from the presence of pollutants in a reference environment.
• Gain familiarity with the core procedures of toxicological risk assessment and the integration of interdisciplinary information (chemical, physical, and biological) within the Safe and Sustainable by Design framework.
• understand the fundamental principles of organic chemistry relevant to industrial and environmental processes;
• describe the main characteristics of chemical processes in industrial chemistry;
• explain the 12 principles of green chemistry and their role in sustainable chemical design;
• understand and interpret key sustainability metrics (Atom Economy, Carbon Efficiency, E-Factor);
• define the concepts of circular bioeconomy and SSbD and their relevance to modern chemical innovation.

ii) Applying knowledge and understanding
The information acquired during the course are expected to be applied within safety and sustainability context. In detail the following are the key points expected to be reached at the end of the course:

• Ability to identify and apply data from literature or databases to assess potential risks to human health when evaluating production processes or innovative products.
• apply green chemistry principles to the analysis of chemical processes;
• use sustainability metrics to evaluate the environmental performance of reactions and processes;
• interpret industrial case studies in terms of efficiency, waste reduction, and resource sustainability;
• relate chemical design choices to circular bioeconomy strategies and SSbD principles.

iii) Making judgements
At the end of the course the students the course will give the student the instruments to make critical judgement of safety and sustainability approaches and results.
In detail these are the specfic objectives

• Ability to assess impacts on humans and to formulate potential mitigation interventions and environmental compatibility strategies.
• Ability to critically analyze literature data; development of an overall vision by integrating interdisciplinary knowledge.
• critically assess the environmental impact and sustainability of chemical processes;
• compare alternative synthetic routes based on green chemistry criteria and quantitative metrics;
• evaluate the coherence of industrial processes with circular bioeconomy and SSbD frameworks;
• identify trade-offs between efficiency, safety, and sustainability in chemical design.

iv) Communication skills
By the end of the course, students will be able to

• use appropriate scientific terminology in safety assessment, green chemistry and industrial chemistry;
• clearly explain hazard definition procedures, exposure assessment, safety approaches, chemical processes, sustainability metrics, and design strategies;
• communicate results of process evaluation using structured scientific language;
• present and discuss case studies in a clear and coherent manner

Learning Skills
By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• integrate knowledge from organic chemistry, industrial chemistry, and sustainability science;
• integrate knowledge from toxicological process to hazard definition and safety assessment;
• independently deepen their understanding of safe, green and sustainable chemistry approaches;
• critically analyze new developments in circular bioeconomy and SSbD frameworks;
• apply acquired tools to future studies and interdisciplinary contexts in chemical sciences.