Green chemistry involves the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances, eliminates waste, uses renewable feedstock and minimises energy requirements. Green chemistry applies across the life cycle of a chemical product, including its design, manufacture, use, and ultimate disposal – it can be considered as essential to move toward the circular economy.

Big changes are currently underway. Following a second round of talks in Nairobi in March 2023, the world moved closer to a global agreement to better manage chemicals and waste to protect the environment and human health. Goals and guiding principles of a new chemical and waste management framework have been agreed to under the United Nations’ Environment Programme, refining essential targets related to the sustainable production and use of chemicals. The guidelines are expected to be adopted during the fifth session of the International Conference on Chemicals Management, scheduled for September this year in Bonn, Germany.

Join the world renowned “founders” of Green Chemistry  – Professors Paul Anastas and John Warner – who will explain why our world needs green chemistry and the vital transitions our industries must make to remove chemical hazards and waste from supply chains and product life cycles.

About the Speakers

Paul T. Anastas is the Teresa and H. John Heinz III Professor in the Practice of Chemistry for the Environment at Yale University. He serves as the Director of the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale, where he also holds appointments in the School of the Environment, Department of Chemistry, and Department of Chemical Engineering. He was previously the Assistant Director for the Environment in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he worked from 1999-2004. Trained as a synthetic organic chemist, Dr. Anastas received his Ph.D. from Brandeis University and worked as an industrial consultant. He is credited with establishing the field of green chemistry during his time working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as the Chief of the Industrial Chemistry Branch and as the Director of the U.S. Green Chemistry Program. Dr Anastas has published widely on topics of science through sustainability including eleven books, such as Benign by Design, Designing Safer Polymers, Green Engineering, and his seminal work with co-author John Warner, Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice.

John Warner received his PhD in Chemistry from Princeton University. After working at the Polaroid Corporation for nearly a decade, he then served as tenured full professor at UMASS Boston and Lowell (Chemistry and Plastics Engineering). In 2007 he founded the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry with Jim Babcock, and Beyond Benign with Amy Cannon. He is one of the cofounders of the field of green chemistry, coauthoring the defining text “Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice” and articulating the 12 principles of green chemistry with Paul Anastas. Dr Warner has over 100 publications providing foundational work in the fields of noncovalent derivatization, polymer photochemistry, metal oxide semiconductors and synthetic organic chemistry. As a 2014 Perkin Medal recipient, John has over 300 patents in various fields of chemistry. He serves as Distinguished Professor of Green Chemistry at Monash University in Australia and was named an Honorary Professor at the Technical University of Berlin. He served as the 2020 and 2021 Global Chair for the Center for Sustainable and Circular Technologies at the University of Bath. He serves as strategic advisor for the Science, Engineering and Health Committee of EPA Victoria in Australia.

Tickets to attend in person are available below.

**Tickets to attend via webinar have now closed, but you can watch our livestream at the appointed hour from the RSV’s YouTube live channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RoyalSocietyVic/streams .