From Responsible Innovation to Safe and Sustainable by Design? Ethics governance at a Swedish nanotechnology hub

Other conference contribution, 2023

Safe-(and-sustainable)-by-design (S(S)bD) collectively intend to render design processes and products safer and more sustainable as a sizeable step in promoting key enabling technologies in Europe. These attributes are proposed to result from technical and normative expert mediation, as demonstrated in studies on the ethics of emerging technologies. This frontloading of values like safety and sustainability can be seen as an adaptation of ethics governance projects, specifically regarding Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). Emphases on responsibility and anticipation, ex ante, contrast with approaches to redress environmental problems from mature technologies. Instead of this hegemonic amelioration ex post, value-by-design schematics explicitly seek to design away the bad or undesirable characteristics. Engineered nanomaterials and advanced materials offer empirical insights into Finn and Shilton's proposed 'ethics governance in the making' with their foundational role in both the (1) policy-centered futures of RRI and (2) regulator-oriented futures of S(S)bD. This follows from previous controversies about commercialized nanomaterials with well-known yet troublesome properties. S(S)bD principles are being implemented across the nanotechnology hub in the city of Lund, Sweden. This research aims to interrogate the credibility and legitimacy of implementing practices that claim to safeguard these values and the corresponding futures at stake. Specifically, how are value conflicts conciliated in the (re)production of safe and sustainable engineered nanomaterials? This study can contribute to discussions surrounding value-ladenness, design and technology in the tradition of STS studies on conflict and expertise and to the longstanding interest in the wider implications of nanotechnology in anticipation of safe and sustainable futures.