Gap Analyses of Environmental Management Frameworks for Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is a rapidly growing field fraught with uncertainty due to the still nascent efforts to understand its potential health risks and ecosystem dynamics. Yet, nanotechnology, like other still-emerging technologies, provides fertile territory for establishing an "upstream" management system that minimizes future risks while still in research and design. Thus, to identify the characteristics of such a proactive nano management system, gap analyses were performed on the sustainable engineering frameworks: Twelve Principles of Green Engineering, Earth Systems Engineering and Management, Life Cycle Assessment, and Cradle to Cradle, with economic, socio-cultural, environmental, and technical criteria, using buckyballs (endohedral metallofullerenes), as a case study nanomaterial. It was determined that, partly due to the unavailability of most quantitative life cycle data, and the need for modifications of these frameworks to function both as proactive as well as nano-specific, it is premature to identify a specific optimal framework. Thus, a "hybrid" framework made partly from the tools, principles, and values of the existing methods like the ones analyzed here is proposed