Methods for
socio-economic analysis under
REACH

Socio-economic Analysis (SEA) will play an important role during implementation and enforcement of REACH. It is a new element compared to the established procedures under the previous legislation on new and existing substances. In addition to being important to REACH, SEA is becoming increasingly important in the context of different international agreements, such as the Stockholm protocol.

Against this background, this project will test the SEA methodology proposed in the respective ECHA guidance on restriction and authorization using example cases. Possible problems should be identified and suggestions on how to overcome these provided, together with recommendations on how existing methods could be further developed. Project work will be supported by a group of external experts.

The project is about developing practical experience regarding the use of SEA methodologies in the area of chemicals assessment, identifying limitations and problems and providing concrete solutions. This will be done with a specific focus on health and environment related issues.

The project has a pure focus on methodology, meaning that no proposals for (new) restrictions or authorization will be developed. Nevertheless it can be expected that the results will be of high interest for different stakeholder groups. In order to disseminate the study findings and to enable the study to gain additional expert advice, an open expert workshop will be organized in the second half of the study.

In addition, the findings of the study in terms of how to address key problems and the further development of methodologies will be fed into European expert discussions.