By Christiana Briddell, ACS GCI, Communications Manager
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has officially announced a new Green Chemistry Initiative to fund $93.4 million in the field over the next 7 years and transform the trajectory of basic research in green chemistry. The announcement was made by Paul Anastas, who will be leading the initiative, during a keynote panel at the recent ACS GCI Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference (GC&E), of which Moore Foundation was a Platinum Sponsor.
A significant investment in green chemistry research is not only a recognition of the potential in this space, but also a recognition of the initiative taken by the green chemistry community over the years. “The Green Chemistry community has shown not only that you can transform chemistry to be higher performing, with higher functionality and benefit to people, but it's also shown that it can do it in a cleaner, more sustainable way,” says Anastas.
Gordon Moore was himself a Ph.D. chemist who went on to be a leader in the semiconductor industry, co-founding Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel Corporation, and helped shape the technology industry into what it is today. The Foundation supports several scientific, environmental, and San Francisco Bay Area programs, but this is the first chemistry-focused program in its portfolio.
As stated on the Foundation’s website, areas of focus for the Initiative will include:
- understanding and designing molecular dynamics
- control and design of intermolecular interactions
- monitoring and controlling interactions and reactions in complex mixtures
- designing and developing new approaches to toxicological assessment and design for reduced hazard
“The Green Chemistry Initiative will look at not just transformative chemistry, but also transformative models and collaboration across sectors and across the globe,” says Anastas. The Green Chemistry & Engineering conference, with its cross-sector draw—getting about equal participation from industry, academia, and students—and global reach—with participants from 46 countries and 6 continents this year—was the perfect venue to make the announcement. As a platinum sponsor, the Moore Foundation recognizes venues like the GC&E Conference as an opportunity to strengthen the ties and collaborations between global researchers and institutions.
“Bringing the community together to identify and discuss how to tackle global challenges through green and sustainable chemistry and engineering is really the focus of the GC&E, and much of what we do at the ACS Green Chemistry Institute,” says Adelina Voutchkova, Director of Sustainable Development at ACS. The ACS GCI completed a gap analysis of funding opportunities to further the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals through chemistry for the Moore Foundation in 2023.
In a time when scientific funding is in flux, the Moore Foundation’s Green Chemistry Initiative is encouraging. Green chemistry research can have a transformative positive impact on the world. Strengthening the cross-sector, collaborative nature of this research will help ensure discoveries and innovations lead to implementation and impact.
“Everyone has an interest—every company, agency, foundation, and institution—in the transforming power of chemistry to change the world. We welcome partners to work with us,” says Anastas. To find out more about the Moore Foundation’s Green Chemistry Initiative, visit their website and sign up for updates.