Citation: Van Hulst, F., Strietman, WJ., Gileva, E., Shivarov, A., Vlachogianni, T., van Leeuwen, J., Hendriksen, A. (2024). SOS-ZEROPOL2030 Deliverable D3.1 ‘Report of 3
regional Living Lab meetings. A regional set of governance gaps and challenges, best practices and future opportunities.

Executive Summary

Three Living Labs were organised as part of the EU-funded Source to Sea: Zero Pollution  2030 (SOS-ZEROPOL2030) project, which aims to deliver a stakeholder-led zero-pollution framework for achieving the European Union’s long-term ambition of ‘Zero Pollution’ in European seas1. The transformative innovation spaces of Living Labs are essential for identifying and understanding challenges, alternatives and trade-offs of pathways towards zero marine pollution. Given the source-to-sea logic of our project, we connect marine pollutants with land-based sources along the life cycle of PFAS-containing products and tyres respectively, which was reflected in the invited expert participants. For the North-East Atlantic Sea region, the Utrecht Living Lab (April 2024) focussed on PFAS emissions in the medical sector, one of the key contributing sectors of PFAS emissions. Identified challenges included the potential for reduced availability of medical products and the associated quality of care, the risk of regrettable substitutions, but also human health- and environmental risks associated with not acting. Best practices and opportunities included the move to a more precautionary and source-based approach to pollution, the need for a deeper reflection on market dynamics and transparency, and unwanted side-effects of aiming for the best-of-the-best care. Coordinated approaches were seen as crucial, where the costs of change are spread fairly across society. For the Black Sea region, the Varna Living Lab (May 2024) focussed on focussed on persistent chemicals in the Black Sea, in particular around PFAS emissions coming from the Danube basin. Awareness among stakeholders about PFAS emissions, pathways and risk was increased during the Living Lab. Systematic monitoring with the associated policy support and funding, was seen as a key challenge as well as raising awareness among all stakeholders including the public. The best practices and opportunities included the strengthening of the role of civil society in environmental issues like PFAS, encouraging more transparency from producers and manufacturers to identify important sources, and strengthening stakeholder partnerships within the Black Sea region as well as among Regional Sea Conventions. For the Mediterranean Sea region, the Athens Living Lab (November 2024) focussed on the prevention and mitigation of emissions of car tyre particles (TWPs) throughout the product chain, with an emphasis on the eco-design of car tyres and the removal of tyre wear particles at wastewater treatment plants. Challenges were linked to the difficulty of particle and chemical analysis, limited transparency on tyre chemicals, fragmented emerging regulatory landscape and lack of public awareness. Effective strategies should include different tyre and car design, promote alternative transportation, and foster public awareness while ensuring that mitigation efforts are tailored to local conditions.

The results across the three Living Labs demonstrate the potential of the methodology and the value of dynamic, experimental co-production spaces. In a next step, these findings will be used to make scenarios towards marine zero-pollution, that will be validated and evaluated in a second round of living labs in 2025.