It's not the first time we've done it.
Chemistry began transforming the world over a century ago, and it impacted all aspects of our society and our civilization in ways that created a modern world that was almost indescribably better than what came before it. After the first wave of transformation based on coal as energy and a carbon source, petrochemistry has opened up even more molecular opportunities and created what some historians describe as “petromodernity.” For many people, it provided access to clean water, safe and plentiful food, efficient transportation, or cures that turned what had previously been considered death sentences into temporary inconveniences. The interplay between chemical science and technology has proven its power to be enormously consequential!
Now we can do it again.
It's well known that the advances that chemistry brought to the world came with consequences that weren't anticipated at the time and caused a variety of severe challenges for people and the planet. In other words, crude oil “fuels” the Anthropocene. While the full benefits of the development reached only parts of the human population, the resulting burdens are global. The good news is that chemists around the world have turned their focus on getting all of the scientific miracles of chemistry while at the same time reducing or eliminating potential risks and harm arising from implementing them as technologies on a scale.
The even better news is that pursuing green chemistry is not simply limited to doing the same things that we've always done in a better way; it opens guidance and motivation for doing better things. Finding ways of making drop-in replacements of traditional chemicals and materials based on renewable energy and feedstocks is undoubtedly an important path into a sustainable future. However, the mere substitution of the input does not capitalize on the transforming power of chemistry! As the energy and feedstock basis changes, this allows for innovations toward new synthetic pathways, new process concepts, and new products with new functions. Inventing the next generation of molecules that will be higher-performing and with functionality not currently available has been the main motor for change in the past—and bears the same power today.
Such world-transforming chemistry is not a dream or science fiction, as was highlighted at the most recent Nobel Symposium, “Chemistry for Sustainability: Fundamental Advances,” held in Stockholm in May 2025. Chemists from every continent presented a collection of astounding chemistry that is available today and provided a glimpse of what is to be realized in the near future. The discussions showcased syntheses and processes that are adaptable and dynamic; molecules and materials that are responsive and multi-functional; polymers that are higher-performing while at the same time self-healing, biodegradable, or recyclable; and value chains that are safe and sustainable by design. The apparent scientific progress and potential for innovation were likely as startling and exciting to those in the audience as were the descriptions of what was to come in 1900!
The advances made by petrochemistry at the beginning of the last century enabled inventions and technological leaps in virtually any other industrial sector throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries. In the same way, novel chemistry integrated in a system of decarbonized energy and renewable feedstocks can be the enabling science that will move technological innovations into performance beyond our current imaginations.
But only if we let it.
The Stockholm Declaration of Chemistry for the Future formulates a Call to Action that outlines a series of imperatives that will allow this chemical revolution to be implemented at scale for the benefit of people, prosperity, and the planet. This path forward is not the sustainability of bans, restrictions, and control; it is the sustainability of innovation, invention, discovery, and impact. One of the many important sentences contained in the Declaration states, “Sustainability without innovation is impossible, and innovation without sustainability would be ruinous.”
It is clear that chemistry can change the world for the better, just as it has before. But it won't improve the world by restricting itself to the accomplishments of a time long in the past; it will only make the future better by capitalizing on the scientific progress of today and embracing sustainability as a commitment to continuous invention and innovation.
That's all The Stockholm Declaration on Chemistry for the Future calls for; nothing more and nothing less.
You can read the Declaration and become a signatory at: