The chemical industry is aware that some practices are more sustainable than others, and to get a better grip on the concept, we've devised 12 principles of green chemistry practices:

​

1. Prevention: It is better to prevent waste than to treat or clean up waste after it has been created.

2. Atom Economy: Synthetic methods should be designed to maximize the incorporation of all materials used in the process into the final product.

3. Less Hazardous Chemical Syntheses: Wherever practicable, synthetic methods should be designed to use and generate substances that possess little or no toxicity to human health and the environment.

4. Designing Safer Chemicals: Chemical products should be designed to preserve the efficacy of function while reducing toxicity.

5. Safer Solvents and Auxiliaries: The use of auxiliary substances (e.g., solvents, separation agents, etc.) should be made unnecessary wherever possible and, innocuous when used.

6. Design for Energy Efficiency: Energy requirements should be recognized for their environmental and economic impacts and should be minimized. Synthetic methods should be conducted at ambient temperature and pressure.

7. Use of Renewable Feedstocks: A raw material or feedstock should be renewable rather than depleting whenever technically and economically practicable.

8. Reduce Derivatives: Unnecessary derivatization (use of blocking groups, protection/deprotection, temporary modification of physical/chemical processes) should be minimized or avoided if possible because such steps require additional reagents and can generate waste.

9. Catalysis: Catalytic reagents [red. chemicals that aren't consumed in the reaction, multi-use] (as selective as possible) are superior to stoichiometric reagents [red. chemicals that are consumed during the reaction, single-use].

10. Design for Degradation: Chemical products should be designed so that at the end of their function they break down into innocuous degradation products and do not persist in the environment.

11. Real-time analysis for Pollution Prevention: Analytical methodologies need to be further developed to allow for real-time, in-process monitoring and control prior to the formation of hazardous substances.

12. Inherently Safer Chemistry for Accident Prevention: Substances and the form of a substance used in a chemical process should be chosen to minimize the potential for chemical accidents, including releases, explosions, and fires.

​

​

12 is a bit of an unruly number though, even Moses came down the mountain with only 10, but fortunately, these 12 principles can be grouped together into 3 major categories:

​

1. Safety: 3, 4, 5, 12

2. Efficiency: 1, 2, 6, 8, 9

3. Sustainability: 7, 8, 10, 11

​

Yes, some principles fall into more than one category, but there is quite some overlap in these principles. Working more efficiently with what you have goes a long way toward sustainability. Our pine tree symbolizes the unity of these categories of the 12 principles we should all strive for in our industrial practices.