Sustainable chemistry provides improvements on one or more attributes such as improved human or ecological health risks, enhanced energy efficiency, reduced environmental emissions or reduced waste generation while delivering the desired performance at competitive cost.
There is increasing commercial and consumer demand for the use of more sustainable chemistry in everyday products, sparking global competition to meet these growing demands. Effective policy can help to ensure U.S. companies and workers seize this innovation challenge and manufacturing opportunity.
As chemistry is intrinsic to all products, a very broad segment of the U.S. economy is involved in sustainable chemistry, including academia, small startups, major chemical producers, small to large commercial and consumer products companies and retailers who provide those products to the public.
Growing the sustainable chemistry sector is challenging for a variety of reasons. Extensive R&D is required to develop innovative sustainable chemistry that delivers the desired sustainability attributes along with the performance and cost required by the market.
Chemical and commercial/consumer products companies generally operate manufacturing operations that require lots of high-performance raw materials at reasonable cost. Scaling up the production of new sustainable chemicals to the large volumes needed by these manufacturing operations can be a financial and technical challenge.
Effective policy can address these barriers by supporting early stage sustainable chemistry R&D, helping companies scale up effectively and supporting market demand for sustainable chemistry products. Policies may include funding mechanisms, tax incentives, federal purchasing and other ways to address these barriers.
This can help the U.S. stake out a significant competitive role in the growing sustainable chemistry market, expanding the nation’s innovation and manufacturing and supporting and creating manufacturing jobs.