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A GEF-funded (Global Environment Facility) project on “Global best practices on emerging chemical policy issues of concern under SAICM” was launched in 2019, targeting Sri Lanka amongst other countries. The activities under the project include a focus on tracking and controlling chemicals along the value chains of the building and construction sector. To that end, a team from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) have been working with stakeholders in Sri Lanka on identifying chemicals of concern in the construction material

Chemicals of concern (CoCs) contained in everyday products can have harmful impacts on human health and the environment. While chemical-related impacts can often occur during a product’s use or end-of-life, decisions influencing product ingredients are taken further upstream of the value chain. Action to address CoCs in products thus need to consider the entire value chain and impactful interventions need to be made at upstream stages to protect human health and the environment from chemical pollution. UNEP is working on

This is the summary of the UNEP report on Chemicals of Concern in the Building and Construction Sector.The report aims at providing an overview of the challenge that chemicals of concern pose in the context of products relevant for the building and construction sector. It outlines the relevance and linkages of chemicals of concern with regards to a building life cycle and highlights existing gaps, challenges and opportunities regarding the imperative of increasing circularity in the building and construction sector.The

This UNEP report aims at providing an overview of the challenge that chemicals of concern pose in the context of products relevant for the building and construction sector. It outlines the relevance and linkages of chemicals of concern with regards to a building life cycle and highlights existing gaps, challenges and opportunities regarding the imperative of increasing circularity in the building and construction sector.

With a total revenue of more than 90 billion USD in 2018, the global toy market is an important sector of consumer products. Like many other products, toys are composed of a diverse range of materials. Many of these materials are made of, or contain manufactured chemicals. Most of these chemicals are intentionally added, but some can also be present as unintended contaminants.Many chemicals have properties that can make them hazardous to human health and/or the environment. The potential use

We present a list of Chemicals of Concern (CoCs) in plastic toys. We started from available studies reporting chemical composition of toys to group plastic materials, as well as to gather mass fractions and function of chemicals in these materials. Chemical emissions from plastic toys and subsequent human exposures were then estimated using a series of models and a coupled near-field and far-field exposure assessment framework. Comparing human doses with reference doses shows high Hazard Quotients of up to 387

AbstractThe world faces an increasing need to phase out harmful chemicals and design sustainable alternatives across various consumer products and industrial applications. Alternatives assessment is an emerging field focusing on identifying viable solutions to substitute harmful chemicals. However, current methods fail to consider trade-offs from human and ecosystem exposures, and from impacts associated with chemical supply chains and product life cycles. To close this gap, we propose a life cycle based alternatives assessment (LCAA) framework for consistently integrating quantitative exposure

The Global Chemicals Outlook II – From Legacies to Innovative Solutions: Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, mandated by the UN Environment Assembly in 2016, seeks to alert policymakers and other stakeholders to the critical role of the sound management of chemicals and waste in sustainable development. It takes stock of global trends as well as progress made and gaps in achieving the global goal to minimize the adverse impacts from chemicals and waste by 2020. The Global Chemicals