Technically and legislation-wise, paint is difficult to recycle and re-use as raw materials are in other industries. Leftover paint has an expiration date and usually ends up never to be used. It needs to be taken to designated waste collection sites which results inconvenient for the consumer. Leftover paint eventually is disposed in the landfill or is incinerated, which emits a significant amount of carbon. This is not acceptable for AkzoNobel which aims at a sustainable and circular paint industry.
For AkzoNobel, the traditional model that has dominated the decorative paints market needs a complete transformation.

This challenge requires you to work together with your peers and combine your interdisciplinary knowledge to think creatively to solve the technical and systematic problems that currently exist. An out of the box perspective is key in surpassing the existing barriers. There are no limitations imposed to the solutions that you propose during the Da Vinci challenge to make AkzoNobel’s products and services more sustainable. You can propose an IT model, a legislative change, a marketing initiative, or a new way of collaboration within the value chain, to name a few. Your solution has not only the potential to change what AkzoNobel does as a company but could also transform the entire industry.

By 2030, CO2 emissions from both households and industry should be significantly reduced. To ensure that we can still make our everyday products in the chemical industry, which currently is very dependent on fossil resources, we need a new refinery concept. What does this new refinery look like and where does the carbon and energy come from to make our fuels and materials?
Take the Netherlands, for example. Where should this refinery ideally be located and how big will it be? Many small refineries or one big one? What should you all consider when building this new refinery? What is desirable? What is feasible? What is viable? And by far most important, what is sustainable and circular? Furthermore, it would also be interesting to look at what is currently being developed in startups and which hurdles those innovations must pass before they become realizable and before they can be integrated in a new refinery.
These are all complex questions that need to be answered by people with different scientific backgrounds.
For more information watch this video.

For chemicals and pharmaceuticals to be released onto the market, they first need to be approved for their safety (and efficacy in the case of drugs) by regulatory agencies. Guidelines, tests and regulations are in place that need to be fulfill, reported and evaluated before substances can be marketed. Employees of regulatory bodies evaluate the dossiers and usually require significant additional testing.
Many of the required safety tests still encompass animal studies, despite the huge scientific and technical advances of the past decades towards animal-free innovations. However, the central question in this Da Vinci challenge is: how useful and predictive (of human toxicity/pathology) are these animal studies? Because the relevance of the results for humans of these tests is questioned to an increasingly extent. Since the use of animals for these purposes is under scrutiny, the challenge is to create and evaluate an inventory of useful requirements and to draw out conclusions on the relevance and usefulness of these tests.

Unilever has the desire to move away from animal safety testing and has developed the Next Generation Risk Assessment as a methodology to assess the safety of chemicals. It is a fully animal-testing free methodology. The validation and acceptance of this new methodology by regulatory agencies is the subject of transdisciplinary research. Providing the evidence for the relevance of new methods and discussing how these can become implemented in legislative procedures, will be crucial steps towards an animal-testing-free world.
For more information watch this video.

In the Netherlands, the healthcare sector is responsible for about 7% of our CO2 emissions. Also, 4% of the waste in the Netherlands and 13% of the use of raw materials. By providing care, the sector is contributing to the climate crisis.
At the UMC Utrecht everything is aimed at making and keeping people healthy. Together with partners in the healthcare sector the UMC Utrecht is working on ‘sustainable care’ within the Green Deal Duurzame Zorg. The team working with UMCU can choose from several focus points.

1. Awareness
   How can we use knowledge from (behavioral) scientific research to make healthcare providers, staff and students aware of the relationship between climate, environment and health? How can we stimulate them to behave more sustainably?
2. Reduction of CO2 produced by traveling
   Can we improve the accessibility of the Utrecht Science Park and maintain our attractiveness as an employer?
3. Reduction of raw materials
   The healthcare sector consumes a lot of materials, auxiliary and protective equipment, and raw materials. We aim to reduce the use of primary raw materials for (medical) devices drastically. A transition from ‘disposable’ to ‘reusable’ and preferably reduction of consumption. On which selection of (medical) devices should we focus to make the most positive impact environmentally?

For more information watch this video

Utrecht has the ambition to become the healthiest, happiest region of The Netherlands and to become a ‘living lab’ for healthy urban living. In doing so, the region contributes to the long-term health and sustainability objectives for 2050 as defined in the EU Green Deal. An important issue that needs to be worked on is the prevention of disease and ill-health by focusing on issues like how transport systems and mobility in general are organised in cities. In this way policy measures can be taken and prioritised.

The constant and dense traffic in the province of Utrecht leads to health-harming concentrations of particulate matter (PM), nitrogen dioxide, ground-level ozone, ultrafine particles, and raises the background noise level. Research has shown that tight regulation of exhaust emissions by the EU has been effective in reducing new cars’ production of particle pollution. But tyre wear pollution is unregulated and can be 1,000 times worse. Increasing popularity of SUVs, larger and heavier than standard vehicles, exacerbates this problem – as does growing sales of heavy EVs and widespread use of budget tyres.

Challenge: Electric car pollution – tires and brakes
Utrecht is the fastest-growing economy in the Netherlands, it is the hub of the Netherlands, partly due to its central location it has a lot of through traffic. After 2030, fossil fuel driven cars will no longer be sold in Europe and therefore a sharp increase of electric road transportation is expected. As such, Utrecht will be very affected by the increase of traffic-related pollution due to the increment of tire and brake wear of the growing fleet of electric cars. As particulate matter and microplastics, end up in the air, water and soil, public health is badly affected.

Addressing this challenge requires the consideration of the following:

• Technical issues of tire and brake wear, directly related to the tire and car industry.
• Regulatory issues of setting norms of pollution, which have a European, national and (minor) provincial dimension.
• Behavioural component in terms of adapting different driving styles and willingness to invest in mitigating measures at individual level.
• Business/budgetary component in terms of increased costs of mitigating measures.
• Collaborative aspects, as this problem requires joint action of different stakeholders like research institutes, different levels of government, private sector, and environmental organisations.
• A need to balance between quick wins, technical and structural solutions.

Important questions that are addressed during this challenge are:
How can we tackle the main root causes strategically?
How can this endeavor be achieved contributing to a transition to clean, healthy transportation in the province of Utrecht by 2050?
How can this be communicated effectively to motivate the different stakeholders to join in the transition?