Environmental Fate

Expert guidance on the environmental fate and behaviour of your substances

Helping manufacturers, formulators, and consortia navigate complex environmental regulations with tailored, science-driven strategies that reduce risk, minimise animal testing, and secure market access.

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What We Do

Helping manufacturers and formulators assess and manage the environmental fate of their substances.

The Environmental Sciences team helps clients understand and demonstrate the environmental fate and behaviour of their substances to meet evolving global regulations.

By combining environmental chemistry expertise with regulatory insight and a deep knowledge of environmental fate processes, we deliver robust assessments of the substance properties that can help us predict its fate and behaviour in the environment including, but not limited to, persistence, mobility, and bioaccumulation. This supports effective hazard and risk management, ensuring your substances remain compliant, competitive, and sustainable.

Evolving Regulations

Meeting the rising demand for safer, more sustainable chemicals.

Increasing regulatory drivers for comprehensive assessments.
Chemical assessment requirements are becoming more stringent and data-driven. The introduction of new EU hazard classes, including PBT/vPvB and PMT/vPvM, introduces additional complexity, particularly as newer regulatory requirements such as mobility (M) can reveal unexpected data gaps. Companies also face increased regulatory scrutiny through dossier and substance evaluations, alongside a growing shift toward group-based assessments.

Rising downstream and consumer expectations.

Even when substances are not legally required to meet certain standards, formulators and consumers increasingly demand environmentally safer ingredients, such as readily biodegradable components in cosmetics. Failing to meet these expectations can reduce competitiveness, as customers and end-users may turn to alternative suppliers or products.

The Challenges

Complex and difficult-to-test substances (e.g., UVCBs).

Traditional test guidelines were developed for simple, single-constituent substances, making multi-constituent and UVCB materials with difficult chemical properties challenging to assess. The appropriateness and technical feasibility of running standard tests on such substances with properties such as low solubility or high volatility is currently under scrutiny by regulators and stakeholders as not being fully fit for purpose. In addition, biodegradation and bioaccumulation studies often cannot be performed on entire UVCBs, creating technical and regulatory uncertainty. These substances require innovative testing and assessment strategies beyond conventional methods to ensure the science is robust and the regulatory needs are filled.

Rapidly evolving regulations.

Regulatory frameworks are continuously changing, with new hazard classes, updated assessment criteria, and evolving data requirements. Keeping up demands proactive monitoring, scientific agility, and strategic planning to maintain compliance and anticipate regulatory obligations.

Balancing data requirements with reducing animal testing.

Regulators need scientifically robust data to evaluate environmental hazards and risks. At the same time, there is growing pressure to minimise vertebrate testing. Companies must adopt alternative testing approaches that maintain data quality, scientific rigour and regulatory acceptance while reducing animal use.

The Solution

Tailored strategies for complex substances.

Innovative, science-driven solutions for complex regulatory challenges

We deliver tailored strategies that address complex substances, evolving regulations, and animal testing minimisation, ensuring assessments are scientifically robust, defensible, and regulatory-aligned.

Tailored strategies for complex and difficult-to-test substances (e.g., UVCBs)

We design bespoke strategies, collaborating with CROs to optimise methods and support your regulatory engagement for non-standard approaches. Expert grouping and read-across fill data gaps and ensure representative, high-quality hazard and risk assessments whilst reducing the need for complex and expensive environmental fate studies.

Proactive support for rapidly evolving regulations

We monitor regulatory developments and participate in key scientific forums, ensuring we can help clients anticipate changes and maintain compliant, up-to-date dossiers.

Reducing animal testing

QSARs, read-across, grouping, and other NAMs fill data gaps efficiently while minimising vertebrate testing and supporting ethical, high-confidence risk assessments.

The Result

Partnering with Penman Consulting delivers confident, cost-effective, and future-ready compliance.

Our tailored strategies, efficient use of available tools, and proactive dossier management provide regulatory resilience, reduced costs, minimised testing, and secure market access.

Our Services

Dossier Management

We prepare and maintain fully compliant dossiers, staying ahead of regulatory changes and support registrants in all areas of regulatory correspondence to reduce the risk of market restrictions.

Why Choose Us?

Expert, tailored, and resilient regulatory support.

Regulatory Resilience

A single, centralised partner ensures consistent compliance across multiple, evolving regulatory frameworks, giving you clarity and confidence in every submission.

Independent, Multidisciplinary Expertise

Access to expert specialists across chemistry, environmental fate and behaviour, ecotoxicology, exposure and risk, delivering scientifically robust, regulator-aligned advice from an independent perspective.

Tailored strategies that protect market access

Bespoke assessment and testing approaches for individual substances, UVCBs or groups, applying QSARs, read-across, grouping and NAMs to efficiently fill data gaps where possible, minimise animal testing and support continued market access.

Our Environmental Experts

Expert insight into chemical fate, toxicity, and environmental risk

Our Environmental Science team combines deep expertise in chemical fate, behaviour, and ecotoxicity with regulatory insight.

We specialise in complex substances, including UVCBs, and use both traditional testing and modern approaches including NAMs, QSARs, read-across and weight of evidence to provide robust, regulator-ready assessments that minimise the need for complex environmental fate studies and support compliant, science-driven decision-making.

Discover our team