• Date 2023-03-30

Organizer: Sustainable Chemistry Catalyst (the Catalyst)

While the chemical industry and its products have played a critical role in driving sustainable development and a high quality of life for people, they are also an important contributor to the climate change, toxic pollution, and plastic waste problems that threaten human and planetary health. This existential crisis undermines the industry’s contributions and creates a challenge that constrains the chemical enterprise’s ability to attract diverse new talent, investment, and trust. In 2022, the UMass Lowell Sustainable Chemistry Catalyst outlined five key conversion strategies and elements of a roadmap to transition the chemical industry towards sustainability. In February 2023, the European Commission published its Transition Pathway for the Chemical Industry aimed at guiding the industry in meeting the challenges of climate change, circularity, safety, and digitization. A parallel roadmap for the industry is embodied in the Louisville Charter for Safer Chemicals. This webinar will present various perspectives on transitioning the chemical industry and the types of research, collaborations, investment, and policy that will be needed for the industry to reinvent itself over the next 10-30 years.

Speakers:

• Algreit Dume, Economist at Directorate General GROW, European Commission
• Ken Geiser, Professor Emeritus at UMass Lowell
• Beverley Thorpe, Safer Chemicals Advocate at Clean Production Action
• Joel Tickner, Professor of Public Health at UMass Lowell & Director of Sustainable Chemistry Catalyst

Further information (Recording and Slides): https://www.sustainablechemistrycatalyst.org/events/transitioning-the-chemical-industry-towards-sustainable-chemicals-and-materials

Background:

Sustainable Chemistry Catalyst (the Catalyst) https://www.sustainablechemistrycatalyst.org