This informal CPD article on Green Chemistry: Providing value through sustainable growth was provided by Elena Merisor PhD at Actalent, an engineering and sciences services and talent solutions company.
Green Chemistry: Providing value through sustainable growth
The chemical industry is currently ranked as the largest industrial energy consumer and third largest emitter of carbon dioxide.1 And while it may not affect profitability in the short-term, it could directly impact credibility, value, and growth in the long-term if greener solutions are not considered and implemented.
The industry can provide immense value to the world and protect its global positioning by pursuing sustainable growth using cleaner, more earth-friendly chemical manufacturing practices and processes. Chemistry holds the key to finding sustainable ways to transform raw materials into products and finding alternative energy sources as our natural sources face depletion.
Introduction
In 2019, the Chemical Industry reached $3.94 trillion in revenue worldwide ($5.7 trillion when pharmaceutical sales are included), making it the second largest manufacturing industry in the world. After experiencing a decline in 2020 due to factors related to COVID-19, chemical sales are projected to not only recover but also double until 2030.
However, the continued decline of raw materials, increased pollution resulting from chemical processes and products, and other risks arising from hazardous chemical demands is attracting a lot of attention from consumers and investors alike. With environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investments on track to become a $30 trillion dollar category by 2030, the increased scrutiny is not expected to wane.
This brief article will present both the progress in green chemistry, as well as the challenges that must be overcome to achieve widespread and universal implementation of green, sustainable practices. Together, we must aim toward delivering any desired molecule to end-users using safe, economically viable, and sustainable processes.
Acknowledging Concerns
The key to the challenging transition towards a sustainable future and sustainable society, in balance with its environment, is Green and Sustainable Chemistry.2 We must be prepared to address the concerns of companies as they shift toward the implementation of greener, more sustainable chemical processes and products:
- Profitability concerns due to compounding factors.
- Reconfiguration of business and operating models to accommodate Green Chemistry practices, including integration of value chain partners.
- Concerns about energy price increases, scarcity of raw materials, and volatile commodity prices.
- Compatibility and integration with new technologies and digital operations.
Toward Solutions
While progress is occurring, the entire chemical industry has a lot of work ahead to achieve the vision of delivering any desired molecule to end-users using “safe, economically viable, and sustainable processes.”3
And we all have a role.
Chemists and chemical engineers have enormous control over manufacturing processes by selecting the most sustainable synthetic routes and applying the Twelve Green Chemistry Principles. Specifically, they can aim toward:
- More efficient bond-making reactions.
- Employing faster, safer, cheaper methods, with less and greener solvent.
- Catalytic paradigms for 100% efficient synthesis.
Chemical companies can begin taking steps to:
- Develop sustainable, cost-effective alternative feedstocks, largely bio-based feedstocks.
- Utilize carbon dioxide (as inexpensive, renewable C1 feedstock) in synthesis of chemicals and transforming the chemical industry.4
- Establish more diversity and inclusion in the chemical industry, by yielding a greater innovation degree and superior performance.
- Implement “Dial-a-molecule,” a 100-percent efficient chemical synthesis.
- Invest in Green Chemistry R&D through the lens of solution-finding for environmental concerns.
The global chemical industry can explore:
- Research and development funding and collaborations with potential partners.
- Partnerships and alliances between industry leaders, government leaders, policymakers, academia, and communities.
- Establishment of metrics to create accountability and measure progress toward green, sustainable chemical practices.
- Sustainable design of plastics and plastic projects, particularly how chemical selection considerations.
- Influence the overall environmental and health impacts at all stages of the manufacturing, user, and end-of-life stages.
- Incorporating Green Chemistry practices along the entire supply chain, including API suppliers and generic drug companies that have not yet embraced Green Chemistry to the extent larger Research and Development companies have.
- Changing the nature of the very definition of “performance” from function alone, to function and sustainability (products, feedstocks, and manufacturing processes will need to integrate the principles of Green Chemistry and Green Engineering, under an expanded definition of performance).5
- Leveraging sustainable-minded customers to gain market share and accelerate adoption of Green Chemistry principles across the supply chain.
- Adoption of simple, clear language for non-scientific communities regarding the solutions Green Chemistry provides.
Conclusion
The benefits of Green Chemistry are numerous:
- Reduction/avoidance of toxic and hazardous chemicals, elimination of pollutant chemicals.
- Reliance on renewable resources, decreasing consumption of non-renewable resources.
- Minimization of negative environmental impacts of chemical processing and manufacturing through application of the Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry.
- Provision of clean technologies that are economically competitive for and advantageous to businesses, resulting in improved efficiencies and waste reduction.
- Improved environmental performance ratings that will elevate business brands and result in increased sales.
- Supports compliance with existing and future legal requirements and a growing list of restricted substances and materials.
Green Chemistry is a continuously evolving frontier, and the Chemical Industry has a tremendous opportunity to pioneer the world toward it. It will require conviction, patience, and support to keep research institutes, academia, and the industry aligned with changing rules and regulations. This transformation will require the best of science, innovation and application of emerging design systems and thinking. Through the pursuit of sustainable growth, the Chemical Industry will not only increase the value it provides to the world, it will also protect its global positioning.
We hope this article was helpful. For more information from Actalent, please visit their CPD Member Directory page. Alternatively please visit the CPD Industry Hubs for more CPD articles, courses and events relevant to your Continuing Professional Development requirements.
Sources:
1. https://www.iea.org/reports/chemicals
2. A. M. Noce in Green Chemistry Education: Recent Developments ed. De Gruyter, 2018, pp. 1-12
3. K. J. Kilpin and R. J. Whitby, Chem. Cent. J., 2015, 9, 43.
4. J. Artz, T. E. Müller, K. Thenert, J. Kleinekorte, R. Meys, A. Sternberg, A. Bardow, and W. Leitner, Chem. Rev., 2018, 118, 434-504
. 5 J. B. Zimmerman, P.T. Anastas, H. C. Erythropel and W. Leitner, Science, 2020, 367, 397-400.
