Objectives and Scope
The Jennifer Altman Foundation has commissioned the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production to review available information relative to the uses and potential alternatives for two brominated flame retardants, tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA) and hexabromocyclododecane HBCD. The objective of this study is to accomplish the following:
Building on the OECD Guidance on Key Considerations for the Identification and Selection of Safer Chemical Alternatives, this report describes the results of a landscape study of sustainability attributes used by companies to guide chemical and material selection decisions.
This report was developed under the Working Party on Risk Management. This report summarises discussions held at a workshop on Additional Attributes Beyond Safer for Chemical Selection and Substitution held in Paris 23-24 September 2024. A draft report was reviewed by workshop participants and the Working Party on Risk Management agreed for the report to be released publicly. The Acknowledgements were added to this publication by the OECD Secretariat.
Assist your team in creating a safer workplace through our course, Transitioning to Safer Chemicals. You’ll learn OSHA’s seven-step substitution planning process so you can evaluate chemical use, study possible alternatives, and pursue safer alternatives. Plus you’ll gain knowledge about databases, as well as other tools and methods to help you make the transition so that your workers are protected from chemical hazards.
Mitigating the impact of toxic chemicals on human health and the environment requires an informed transition to safer alternative chemicals, materials, and technologies. Alternatives assessment is a multi-disciplinary approach to support informed substitution and is defined as a “process for identifying and comparing potential chemical and non-chemical alternatives that could replace chemicals of concern on the basis of their hazards, performance, and economic viability” (National Research Council, 2014).
Supporting the transition to safer and more sustainable chemicals and materials requires minimizing the chance of a regrettable substitution. Alternatives assessment is defined as a “process for identifying and comparing potential chemical and non-chemical alternatives [e.g., materials, products, technologies] that could replace chemicals of concern on the basis of their hazards, performance, and economic viability” (National Research Council, 2014).
This toolkit has a number of different modules ranging from an overview of sustainability, the 12 principles of green chemistry, real world examples and case studies to using biomimicry as an innovation driver, regulations and international conventions and chemical substitution and alternatives assessment.
This guidance was developed with the aim to advance broader agreement on a general approach and criteria for the selection of safer alternatives, with a focus on chemical substitution. It is intended to advance a consistent understanding of the minimum requirements needed to determine whether a chemical alternative is safer than the priority chemical, product, or technology for substitution, independent of the entity performing the assessment or the alternatives assessment framework being used.
Alternatives assessment and green chemistry share a common goal of supporting the transition to safer, more sustainable chemicals, materials, and products. Yet the two fields, and their respective scientific communities, are not well integrated.