Identification and Preliminary Assessment of Green Platform Chemicals

Abstract

Despite the huge progress that chemical policy has achieved in the last years to control the risk of chemicals, fossil resource use as well as pollution by chemicals are still considered as two of the main concerns of the triple planetary crisis. Thus, the European Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) identifies the transition of industry towards safer andmore sustainable chemicals as amajor challenge for future chemicals policy andmanagement. For this reason, the development of safe and sustainable by design (SSbD) alternatives is a must. The concept of green chemistry has become an essential innovation aiming at the transformation of the current chemical production, which is fossil based and involves substances bearing high hazardous potential, to more benign solutions. In the literature, the term “green platform chemicals” has become a synonym for describing the chemical bases for such an alternative approach. While the colour green symbolizes entities which are derived from nature in our society and therefore are genuinely considered as benign for humans, examples like phyto- andmycotoxins are in strong contrast to that picture. This cliche may also apply to green platform chemicals. Therefore, this work aims at establishing a list of potential green platform chemicals and to make a first assessment with respect to their regulatory status and their potential hazards based on existing and publicly available data.