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Key Characteristics of Sustainable Chemistry

Sustainable Chemistry goes beyond the full life cycle of products, by including system thinking throughout.

Sustainable Chemistry – where change begins

Sustainable Chemistry goes beyond the full life cycle of products (development, manufacturing, use, repair, reuse and recycling), by including system thinking throughout (e.g. replace specific chemical function by service, new design or both). This ensures that processes contribute not only to an increase in economic efficiency but also to a reduction of negative impacts on the environment and human health, while at the same time improving social responsibility through sustainable development and innovation.

Sustainability is not a linear process with a fixed endpoint, but a continuous cycle of improvement. The characteristics are interconnected, highlighting the need to balance trade-offs and adapt to new knowledge or changing conditions.

The 10 Key Characteristics of Sustainable Chemistry provide a clear and practical framework to assess and ensure sustainability for chemical technologies, processes, products, and services. They help to consider environmental, economic, and social aspects in a holistic way and support informed decision-making. In addition, ISC3 has developed a simplified version of these key characteristics to offer an accessible entry point, making Sustainable Chemistry easier to understand and apply in everyday decision-making.

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Simplified Key Characteristics

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1. HOLISTIC:

Guiding the chemical science and the chemical sector towards contributing to Sustainability in agreement with sustainability principles and general understanding and appreciating potential interdependencies including long-distance interactions and temporal gaps between the chemical and other sectors.

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2. PRECAUTIONARY:

Avoiding transfer of problems and costs into other domains, spheres and regions at the outset, preventing future legacies and taking care of the legacies of the past including linked responsibilities.

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3. SYSTEMS THINKING:

Securing its interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary character including a strong disciplinary basis but taking into account other fields to meet Sustainability to its full extent. Application as for industrial practice including strategic and business planning, education, risk assessment and others including the social and economical spheres by all stakeholders.

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4. ETHICAL AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY:

Adhering to value to all inhabitants of planet earth, the human rights, and welfare of all live, justice, the interest of vulnerable groups and promoting fair, inclusive, critical, and emancipatory approaches in all its fields including education, science, and technology.

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5. COLLABORATION AND TRANSPARENCY:

Fostering exchange, collaboration, and right to know of all stakeholders for improving the sustainability of business models, services, processes and productsc and linked decisions including ecological, social, and economic development on all levels. Avoiding all “green washing” and “sustainability washing” by full transparency in all scientific and business activities towards all stakeholders, and civil society.

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6. SUSTAINABLE AND RESPONSIBLE INNOVATION:

Transforming fully the chemical and allied industries from the molecular to the macroscopic levels of products, processes, functions and services in a proactive perspective towards sustainabilityd including continuous trustworthy, transparent and traceable monitoring.

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7. SOUND CHEMICALS MANAGEMENT:

Supporting the sound management of chemicals and waste throughout their whole life cycle avoiding toxicity, persistency and bio-accumulation and other harm of chemical substances, materials, processes, products and services to humans and the environment.

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8. CIRCULARITY:

Accounting for the opportunities and limitations of a circular economy including reducing total substance flows, material flows, product flows, and connected energy flows at all spatial and temporal scales and dimensions especially with respect to volume and complexity.

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9. GREEN CHEMISTRY:

Meeting under Sustainable Chemistry application as many as possible of the 12 principles of green chemistry with hazard reduction at its core when chemicals are needed to deliver a service or function whenever and wherever this complies with sustainability.

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10. LIFE CYCLE:

Application of the above-mentioned key characteristics for the whole lifecycle of products, processes, functions and services on all levels, e.g. from molecular to the macroscopic levels and all sectors in a pro-active perspective towards sustainability.

Dialogue Process

The dialogue was initiated in 2019 based on the ISC3 Thought Starter “Towards a Common Understanding of Sustainable Chemistry”. The dialogue invited all stakeholders to voice opinions and share their expectations towards the emerging concept. Lively discussions took place during the first ISC3 Stakeholder Forum in June 2019. Furthermore, the Thought Starter was introduced to the SAICM stakeholders through an INF doc, which was submitted by the ISC3 to the OEWG in Montevideo, as well as at a workshop at the margins of the IP3 in Bangkok.

The revised version of the paper “Key Characteristics of Sustainable Chemistry” was presented at the 2nd ISC3 Stakeholder Forum in November 2020. The paper can be downloaded below.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. We are looking forward to learning about your ideas, expectations and questions!

contact@isc3.org

References:

[1] Dialogue Paper by the International Sustainable Chemistry Collaborative Centre (ISC3), Bonn, Germany**
K. Kümmerer, A.-K. Amsel, D. Bartkowiak, A. Bazzanella, C. Blum, C. Cinquemani