UN SDGs: How can Sustainable Chemistry Contribute?

Producing enough food of sufficient quality to feed an ever increasing population faces many challenges. This will require higher yields from agricultural production to meet the demands of changing population demographics using the limited natural resources available. Crop protection chemicals, developed by the agrochemical industry, are used by growers to ensure that consistently high yields are obtained, provide ease and reliability of harvest and to maintain excellent quality of produce from the crops they grow.

Sustainable green chemistry depends on technically feasible, cost-effective and socially acceptable decisions by regulators, industry and the wider community. The discipline needs to embrace a new suite of tools and train proponents in their use. We propose a set of tools that will bridge the gap between technical feasibility and efficiency on one hand, and social preferences and values on the other. We argue that they are indispensable in the next generation of regulators and chemistry industry proponents.

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's) have exceptional value in identifying key areas of challenge that need urgent improvement if we are to move away from the unsustainable trajectory that we are on. The place that is a major shortcoming of these goals is that they take a highly integrated and inextricably linked system, and express them as individual areas such as food, water, poverty, materials, empowerment, etc. In the absence of systems thinking, there is an excellent chance of noble intentions bringing about unintended and perhaps counter-productive consequences.