Key messages

• Consistent risk assessment requires that risks of compounds can be compared and ranked
• Evaluation of current approach and development of concepts and methodologies to improve comparability
• Risk assessment outcomes should also hold against relative risks of compounds identified in real world studies 

Overview

This project aims to demonstrate that environmental risk assessments ↗ of plant protection products, often referred to as pesticides ↗, can be used as benchmarks to evaluate the risks of other similar products. The process involves comparing and ranking the environmental risks of different plant protection products across various substances and groups of organisms, ensuring that all assessments follow the same level of refinement. By developing new concepts and methodologies, the project seeks to make individual risk assessments more comparable and consistent, which will improve their reliability when matched against real-world monitoring data and lead to more accurate environmental risk estimations.  

A key goal is to create a more comprehensive approach to environmental risk assessments that manages risks more effectively. The project will analyse existing data sets and case studies of products rejected during regulatory assessments. This will allow for both internal comparisons within a product’s risk profile and external benchmarking against other products. The findings will help identify weaknesses in the current environmental risk assessments system and propose immediate solutions. Over time, the project will develop a compatibility methodology aligned with the future environmental risk assessments framework envisioned by the Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC) partners. Ultimately, these efforts aim to significantly improve the environmental risk assessments process under European regulation ↗, ensuring better protection for ecosystems and public health. 

Achievements & Results

• Investigated the heterogeneity of higher-tier data, leading to the preliminary conclusion that this would be a challenge to benchmarking plant protection products (a pre-print is available).
• Identified and highlighted the environmental risk assessment factors determining the rejection of a PPP under the EU regulatory framework EC No. 1109/2009.
• Conceptual Plant Protection Products Benchmarking Paper with the working title “A Benchmarking Framework to Improve the Quality and Expedience of Regulatory Environmental Risk Assessment for PPPs”
• Development of an internal risk benchmarking framework concept for plant protection products.
• Creation of database containing EU-authorized active substances for insecticides and acaricides, their toxicity endpoints, predicted environmental concentrations and other exposure data, environmental fate, mode of action and representative uses.
• The project will produce an environmental risk assessment concept and methodology to develop new guidance for environmental risk assessment within the authorization process. This environmental risk assessment will enhance the ability to capture the relative risk of different plant protection products across relevant spatial and temporal scales, using similar data and levels of refinement.  

Policy relevance

Environmental risk assessment is an important area contributing to a sustainable use of plant protection products as demanded by the Sustainable Use Directive and also contributes to meet biodiversity targets through a more efficient management of environmental risks.