Nanotechnology governance is currently characterised by two parallel movements. The first one regards the “emerging political consensus” on the opportunity and need for early engagement of stakeholders in decisions about nanoscience and technology. The second one concerns the growing importance that is attached to soft- and self-regulatory solutions to govern the highly diversified and uncertain nanotechnology field .
However, while participatory exercises implement mechanisms favouring the dialogue between heterogeneous stakeholders, soft- and self-regulatory initiatives are promoted by, and are aimed at, more homogeneous groups of social actors, like e.g. firms, as this homogeneity is a requirement for such initiatives to be meaningful for their activity.
The UGO certification standard [5] proposes an integrative framework for these two trends in nanotechnology governance. One the one hand, UGO is targeted at industries in order to foster their commitment for sustainable innovation. On the other hand, UGO defines sustainable innovation in much broader terms than other current certification standards and activities thus enlarging the set of potential stakeholders that are considered when the consequences of innovation are assessed and, most importantly, that are involved in certification procedures.
