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A company may choose to substitute a chemical to improve the safety or environmental footprint of a product or material.  In other cases, the primary reason may be to improve functionality, but it is important to ensure that substitute chemicals do not carry unintended health or pollution risks.  This guide form the European Chemicals Agency provides an overview of how to identify harmful substances and ensure that substitution practices are effective in improving safety and reducing chemical impacts.

OECD have compiled a range of frameworks, guides and toolkits are available to support sound chemical substitution processes.

A guide from ChemSec aiming to simplify the process of chemical substitution

This guide is produced by the RISE Research Institutes of Sweden.The substitution guide is aimed for all businesses who want to start working on systematic chemical work. It might be best suited for small and medium-sized companies that are just starting their work. The guide does not address any specific industry, but the examples and templates are developed for producing companies and companies that work with trade in goods.

The substitution guide provides practical advice and recommends tools and resources that are relevant to the goal of each step. Some resources can be used in several steps, so they are mentioned several times so that you know how the resources are intended to be used.

The Portal provides information to supporting efforts in substituting hazardous substances and assisting in finding safer alternatives. 

Plastic is one of the most used materials for consumer goods, packaging and as building material. The use of plastics in the building sector is greatly influenced by current megatrends: climate change, pollution, demography and urbanisation, need for resilience, health, as well as affordable housing and shelter with its regional implications.

UNEP's new Eco-innovation Building Materials Supplement was created to respond to the building material sector's need for more guidance in building resilient, competitive, and sustainable business models for SMEs. Designed together with Bioregional, pilot implementation support of the National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPC) Sri Lanka and to be read alongside UNEP's Eco-innovation Manual, the supplement provides specific examples, learning case studies, and advice on applying the eco-innovation methodology within the building materials value chain.

This site is a useful introduction to chemicals in building products. It lists the most commonly found hazardous chemicals in certain building products and the associated health risks.

In recent years, awareness of the negative impacts of plastic waste and pollution on our environment has heightened.   The construction sector’s use of plastic continues to grow and there is a lack of clarity on how construction plastics at the end of life are managed. There is still much to learn about plastics in construction, such as the volumes of plastic used, types of polymers, their applications and lifespans. 

This interactive PDF guide has been developed by the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products and peer-reviewed by the ASBP Plastics in Construction Group.

Este documento aborda la gestión de sustancias químicas de preocupación y algunos

aspectos de sostenibilidad, incluyendo la circularidad en la compra pública sostenible

(CPS) de los AEE, específicamente de computadores, impresoras y acondicionadores de

aire, proporcionando además una orientación clara a las entidades públicas sobre cómo

incluir criterios técnicos para la adquisición de dichos equipos.