UN sustainable development goals: How can sustainable/green chemistry contribute? By doing things differently

Elsevier, Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry, Volume 13, October 2018
Authors: 
Poliakoff M., Licence P., George M.W.
Until now, much Green and Sustainable Chemistry has been focused on how chemicals are made. Here we suggest that, if chemistry is to contribute effectively to achieving the SDGs, we need to change the way that things are done at both ends of the chemical supply chain. For chemical research at the start of the chain, we need to rethink how we build the laboratories in which we carry out the research so as to minimize the use of energy. At the other end of the chain, we advocate the adoption of a Moore's Law for Chemistry (MLFC), which we recently proposed that, wherever possible, the amount of chemical(s) used to achieve a given effect should be decreased by a factor of 2 every five years.