We are delighted to share the news that, as of 15th April 2026, the (EU Standards related) Collaborative Workshop Agreement CWA 18361:2026 - Methodology for Early-Stage Sustainability Assessment and Efficient Energy by Design is available and freely accessible to anyone on the CEN open-access CWA download area.

Use this link to browse the CWA download area of the CEN website, or

Directly download the open access CWA 18361:2026

Background and Further Information

The European Commission’s Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) framework  requires safe and sustainable outcomes from process and product design, and any subsequent changes to these products and processes. This usually requires a costly, time-consuming life cycle analysis  (LCA) which moreover requires considerable technical expertise.   The methodology described and utilised in the new open access CWA arise from collaboration within the ETERNAL RIA and have been agreed in consultation with interested stakeholders through the CEN workshop process. The Methodology provide tools that can be used from project conceptualisation onwards, particularly when specific design parameters such as cost and energy consumption details are not fully known.

The methodology described in the new publication builds in part on recognised good practice standardised in the Irish Standard IS 399 for Energy Efficient Design (EED) Management, and the Framework for Early-Stage Sustainability Assessment (FESSA) developed and published during the course of the ETERNAL project. You can read about its application to an industrial case study in a recent white paper publication from the team leading the development of the CWA, where Angelini Pharma wished to increase the overall efficiency of a process for acetone solvent recovery by distillation to achieve environmental and economic benefits. By systematically applying Challenge & Analyse (C&A) thinking to identify the optimal solution based upon a consistent set of decision criteria in an evaluation at the earliest stages of the project, subsequent allocation of resources could be appropriately directed towards more detailed, time and resource-intensive life cycle assessment.