Sustainable Manufacturing and Green Chemistry
On August 2, 2010, UL Environment and Greener World Media released a draft sustainability certification for manufacturing companies.
On August 4, John Warner of Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry (also known as the “Father of Green Chemistry”) spoke at the Cleantech InnoVenture Center in Lynn, MA.
Here are the key components of UL’s and Greener World Media’s Sustainability Certification criteria:
• Sustainability governance: How an organization leads and manages itself in relation to its stakeholders, including employees, investors, regulatory authorities, customers and the communities in which it operates.
• Environment: How an organization manages its environmental footprint across its policies, operations, products and services, including its resource use and emissions.
• Workforce: Issues related to employee working conditions, organization culture, benefits and retention.
• Customers and suppliers: Issues related to an organization’s policies and practices on product safety, quality, pricing and marketing as well as its supply chain policies and practices.
• Social and community engagement: An organization’s impacts on the communities in which it operates in the areas of social equity, ethical conduct and human rights.
The authors of this Sustainability Certification are looking for your comments. The comment process is open to all. To participate, register at www.greenbiz.com/ratings. The comment period for ULE 880 is open until September 14, 2010. For more information on this certification, please visit: http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2010/08/02/sustainability-certification-companies-opens-public-comment
- Pollution Prevention: It is better to prevent waste than to treat and clean up waste after it is formed.
- Atom Economy: Synthetic methods should be designed to maximize the incorporation of all materials used in the process into the final product.
- Less Hazardous Synthesis: Whenever practicable, synthetic methodologies should be designed to use and generate substances that possess little or no toxicity to human health and the environment.
- Design Safer Chemicals: Chemical products should be designed to preserve efficacy of the function while reducing toxicity.
- Safer Solvents and Auxiliaries: The use of auxiliary substances (solvents, separations agents, etc.) should be made unnecessary whenever possible and, when used, innocuous.
- Design for Energy Efficiency: Energy requirements should be recognized for their environmental and economic impacts and should be minimized. Synthetic methods should be conducted to ambient temperature and pressure.
- Use of Renewable Feedstocks: A raw material or feedstock should be renewable rather than depleting whenever technically and economically practical.
- Reduce Derivatives: Unnecessary derivatization (blocking group, protection/deprotection, temporary modification of physical/chemical processes) should be avoided whenever possible.
- Catalysis: Catalytic reagents (as selective as possible) are superior to stoichiometric reagents.
- Design for Degradation: Chemical products should be designed so that at the end of their function they do not persist in the environment and instead breakdown into innocuous degradation products.
- Real-Time Analysis for Pollution Prevention: Analytical methodologies need to be further developed to allow for real-time in-process monitoring and control prior to the formation of hazardous substances.
- Inherently Safer Chemistry for Accident Prevention: Substance and the form of a substance used in a chemical process should be chosen so as to minimize the potential for chemical accidents, including releases, explosions and fires.
For more information on John Warner and Green Chemistry, please visit: Warner Babcock
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