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The development of plastic products does not systematically take sustainability, particularly from a chemicals perspective, into account. This report seeks to enable the creation of inherently sustainable plastic products by integrating sustainable chemistry thinking in the design process. By applying a chemicals lens during the plastic material selection process, designers and engineers can make informed decisions to incorporate sustainable plastic during the conceptualisation phase of their products. The report provides an integrated approach to sustainable plastic selection from a chemicals

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.

UN Environment Programme (UNEP) defines single use plastic products as “an umbrella term for different types of products that are typically used once before being thrown away or recycled” (UNEP 2018), which includes food packaging, bottles, straws, containers, cups, cutlery and shopping bags. It has been estimated that about 100-150 million tonnes of plastics are produced for single use products and about 8 million tonnes of plastics are dumped into the oceans every year (Plastics Oceans 2019)There is a need

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