David C. Long, a long-time champion of green chemistry, passed away on September 5. His leadership driving green chemistry in industry contributed greatly to the impact of the ACS Green Chemistry Institute over many years.
While at SC Johnson, Dave led their effort to create Greenlist™, a rigorous system to rate the environmental footprint of the ingredients that go into the company’s products. SC Johnson used Greenlist™ to identify areas of improvement in product formulas, including replacing a VOC in Windex that eliminated 1.8 million pounds of VOCs each year. This work was recognized in 2005 with a prestigious Presidential Green Chemistry Award for Designing Greener Chemicals.
Dave was a valued member of the Governing Board of the ACS Green Chemistry Institute from 2008-2016.
“Dave was instrumental in helping to rebuild the ACS Green Chemistry Institute during a critical transitioning phase,” said Dr. Robert Peoples, former ACS GCI director, president of Environmental Impact Group, and founding executive director of CARE. “He had a can do and pragmatic approach to implementing green chemistry, which I deeply appreciated. His friendly demeanor and intellectual approach made progress possible.”
During his time on the ACS GCI Governing Board, Dave brought cleaning and personal care product companies together to form the ACS GCI Formulators Roundtable to advance more sustainable and safer alternatives. The group was active from 2007-2020. Among his many contributions to catalyze greener consumer cleaning products was his contribution of a chapter in the Wiley textbook, Green Techniques for Organic Synthesis and Medicinal Chemistry, edited by Wei Zhang and Berkeley W. Cue.
Dave was also a founding member of the Green Chemistry and Commerce Council (now called Change Chemistry) which began in the mid-2000s.
After retirement, Dave continued his passion for green chemistry through his consulting business, Environmental Sustainable Solutions, LLC. “Dave’s tireless commitment, friendly smile, and sage counsel will be missed by us all,” says Peoples. Indeed, there are many readers of The Nexus that will continue to cherish his memory as an early leader the green chemistry community.