Making green chemistry mainstream – event

The Guardian will host an invitation-only event featuring leading speakers in the field of green chemistry this September in New York City. Photograph: Alamy

Green chemistry has been touted as the way forward for consumer product companies for years. In the last decade, the field has exploded with new ideas, catalyzed by collaborations between companies and researchers. But despite years of progress, green chemistry is still its own branch of chemistry – the exception rather than the norm.

If you would like to attend, please click here to register.

What to expect

At the Guardian Green Chemistry Conference, key experts and innovators in green chemistry will come together to analyze the challenges and opportunities that characterize the industry today, and share ideas for scaling green chemistry into a mainstream practice.

In addition to talks and presentations focused on solutions and lessons learned, the event will include hands-on working groups geared toward addressing specific challenges at every step of the supply chain: research and development, product lifecycle, and marketing and communications.

Speakers

Paul Anastas, director of the Yale Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering
Monica Becker, principal, Monica Becker & Associates, and co-director, Green Chemistry & Commerce Council
Libby Bernick, senior vice president, Trucost
Arlene Blum, founder and executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute
Mark Dorfman, senior scientist at Biomimicry 3.8
Marc Gunther, chair and editor-at-large, Guardian Sustainable Business
David Levine, cofounder and CEO of the American Sustainable Business Council
Tess Fennelly, principal at T Fennelly & Associates
Pete Myers, CEO and chief scientist at Environmental Health Sciences
Pamela Oksiuta, senior director of global sustainability at SC Johnson
Dr Joel Tickner, director of the Green Chemistry & Commerce Council at the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell
Dr John Warner, president and chief technology officer of the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry
Heather White, executive director of Environmental Working Group (EWG)

Program

9am Delegate registration
9.30am Chairperson’s welcome (Gunther)
9.35am Keynote: The Big Picture – a look at the landscape for green chemistry (Anastas)
10am Keynote: The Technology Greenhouse – Idea to Commercialization (Warner)
10:30am Q&A (Anastas, Warner)
10:45am Network and refresh (included)

11am Regulatory Roundtable – panel discussion about the shifting US regulatory framework, the Toxic Substances Control Act, and what it all means for green chemistry (White, Ticknor, Levine)
12pm Advancing green chemistry: Barriers to adoption and means to accelerate growth along the supply chain (Fennelly)
12.15pm A biomimetic approach to green chemistry (Dorfman)
12.30pm Lunch (included)

1:30pm Designing hazards out of chemicals (Myers)
1:45pm Working groups: session 1
Fast tracking R&D (Becker)
Seizing the business opportunity (Bernick)
Transparency and the consumer (Oksiuta)
2:45pm Working groups report back
3pm The six classes: policy and purchasing to drive green chemistry (Blum)
3:30pm Wrap up and networking opportunity

Date

Wednesday, 2 September, 2015

Venue

One UN New York hotel at 1 UN Plaza, New York City

Time

9am-4.45pm

Registration fees

$100 (special subsidized rate for the Guardian readers). Registration includes all sessions, event materials, refreshment breaks and lunch.

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