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By Adelina Voutchkova, ACS Director of Sustainable Development
This letter originally appeared in the March/April issue of the Nexus newsletter.
Dear colleagues,
This issue of the Nexus is hitting your mailboxes amidst unprecedented turbulence for the scientific community. Many members of our community have been impacted by recent policy events, and we want to extend our support to all of you. Amidst this turbulence, a significant event for the green chemistry and engineering community went under the radar: last December, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released the second part of the Sustainable Chemistry Strategy Report mandated by the bipartisan Sustainable Chemistry Research and Development Act, enacted during the first Trump administration. Although the Biden OSTP site has been archived, the report can be accessed through the Green Chemistry for Sustainability platform. This 52-page document outlines a comprehensive plan for advancing sustainable chemistry in the United States and provides a “call to action” for the scientific community to fill innovation gaps and translate them into practical implementation.
The report highlights several key areas of research with significant potential impacts, including earth-abundant metal catalysis, discovery of more sustainable chemical transformation mechanisms, and innovation and adoption of biocatalysis and synthetic biology for chemical manufacturing. Surprisingly, one area that received less attention in the report was the development of rational approaches for the design of safer commercial chemicals and assessments of chemical safety.
Additionally, the report emphasizes leveraging data-driven approaches to advance sustainable chemistry practices. This includes utilizing advanced data analytics and AI to optimize chemical processes and predict environmental impacts. By integrating data-driven methodologies, researchers can identify more sustainable alternatives and improve the efficiency of chemical transformations. These approaches also facilitate the development of safer chemicals and materials by providing insights into their potential hazards and lifecycle impacts.
As noted by Joel Tickner in a recent C&EN Comment, the report does not address some aspects critical to incentivizing sustainable chemistry investment, such as practical criteria to evaluate investments from this perspective and emphasis on safety as a pre-requisite for sustainability. However, it calls for development of a framework to evaluate the sustainability of products or processes through a multicriteria analysis that involves efficiency, energy, circularity, safety, social, and economic factors (Figure below). Implementing such a framework will be no small feat, requiring buy-in from researchers, agencies, industry and NGOs.
We encourage you to delve into the report and explore the research areas with high potential for impact. Read the full report and join us in making a difference. For more insights, you can also read the detailed coverage from C&EN’s Sara Cottle.