Clean launches new call to accelerate PFAS solutions

In many ways, PFAS is a textbook example of how technological progress can create new challenges.

These substances were developed because they offer properties that few other materials can match: resistance to heat, water, grease, chemicals, and wear. As a result, PFAS has become widely used in everything from industrial equipment and textiles to packaging, electronics, paints, and firefighting foams.

However, the same chemical stability that makes PFAS so valuable is also what makes it problematic. Many PFAS substances break down extremely slowly, can spread through aquatic environments, and accumulate in people, animals, and nature. And that’s why we call them “forever chemicals.”

More than an environmental challenge

PFAS represents a different kind of environmental challenge from those we are used to addressing. It is not simply about cleaning up a known source of contamination in one location. It is about products, manufacturing processes, waste, wastewater, stormwater, groundwater, sewage sludge, landfill leachate and air emissions. In other words, it affects the entire value chain.

At the same time, the regulatory landscape is evolving rapidly. Several PFAS substances are already regulated, and both Denmark and the European Union continue to tighten requirements. Denmark has introduced national restrictions covering food contact materials, firefighting concentrates, and consumer products such as clothing, footwear, and waterproofing products, while the EU is implementing the PFHxA restriction, introducing new rules for PFAS in areas including food contact packaging, and continuing to assess the broad REACH proposal to restrict all PFAS.

For businesses, the conclusion is becoming increasingly clear: PFAS is no longer just an environmental issue. It is also about regulatory preparedness, risk management, market access and long-term competitiveness.

It is also an economic issue. The European Commission estimates that maintaining current levels of PFAS pollution in Europe could cost around EUR 440 billion by 2050 if no further action is taken. At the same time, tackling PFAS at the source is expected to deliver substantial societal savings, while cleaning up contaminated water alone could become significantly more expensive. It is a reminder that delaying action on PFAS comes at a cost.

Where will the solutions come from?

Clean sees PFAS as a complex challenge that must be made manageable—not by oversimplifying it, but by breaking it down into concrete areas for innovation.

• How can monitoring and detection be improved?
• How can PFAS be removed from complex waste streams such as sewage sludge and landfill leachate?
• How can PFAS be destroyed safely without simply transferring the problem elsewhere?
• How can PFAS-free alternatives be developed without compromising technical performance, commercial viability or scalability?
• How can we avoid replacing one problematic substance with another?

And how can all of this be achieved in ways that support a circular economy and the resource-efficient systems of the future?

From understanding the challenge to developing solutions

Clean is already working with companies, knowledge institutions and other key stakeholders through collaborative networks focusing on PFAS. The cluster is now stepping up its efforts to bring even more companies and knowledge institutions together to develop, test and mature solutions to PFAS-related challenges.

As part of this effort, Clean has launched a themed call for innovation projects focusing on PFAS. The ambition is not to produce yet another report describing the scale of the problem. We already know the challenge is significant. The focus is on developing and testing practical solutions that can move closer to implementation and market readiness—from PFAS removal and destruction technologies to substitution, packaging design, and the development and validation of new materials.

No one can solve PFAS alone

Addressing PFAS requires system innovation. No municipality, utility, company, consultant, researcher or public authority can solve the challenge alone. But the right partnerships can move us from understanding the problem to implementing solutions—not because PFAS is simple, but because the challenge is too important to allow complexity to become an excuse for inaction.

Do you have an idea for a PFAS project?

Clean has opened a themed Videnbro Project call focusing on PFAS. Small and medium-sized enterprises can apply for funding to develop and test new solutions in collaboration with a knowledge institution, helping to bring promising ideas closer to implementation and the market.

Application deadline: 16 September 2026