INSCX Exchange: The Hub Approach to Self-regulation in Support of Risk Governance, Assurance, and Transfer

Abstract

The drive to regulate nanoscience and nanotechnology (N&N) continues to evolve in tandem with the efforts to structure sustainable commercial exploitation of the field. Regulation agencies and risk stakeholders require tools to balance commercial and societal interest effectively with clarity and rapid embedment. This chapter suggests one such tool of benefit both in a commercial and stewardship context, is that of a formal commodity exchange system specifically established to structure trade in compliant, validated, and inspected nanomaterials, the raw materials base of N&N. The author suggests that a greater use of a formal commodity exchange system can be considered to impose an ethos of self-regulation on physical supply and use of engineered nanomaterials, thus aiding the ongoing efforts of regulation agencies and risk stakeholders to regulate with increasing cohesion and industry acceptance this emerging field of advanced materials science.