Agenda

9:00 AM -12:00 PM CST

Cultivating the Next Generation of Sustainable Chemistry Workforce and Leaders

As companies race to address ever-mounting pressures from consumers, regulations and the finance community to meet broad sustainability goals, the need for a sustainability-focused workforce becomes more apparent. Change Chemistry, Beyond Benign, and the ACS Green Chemistry Institute comprise the critical backbone organizations that support the development of the next generation of chemists, engineers and decision-makers for the chemical industry. The goal of this interactive session will be to understand the needs of industry with respect to the future workforce, how industry creates “pull” for students with sustainability mindset, and how industrial-academic partnerships can drive the innovation and workforce needs of the future. 

10:00 AM – 12:00 PM CST

Tour of MilliporeSigma Laboratories  and Green Chemistry Curiosity Labs™

Take a peek inside some of MilliporeSigma's Laboratories!

Attendees will also experience their new Curiosity Labs™ lesson on green chemistry and learn how they spark curiosity in the next generation of scientists!  This activity introduces the topics of green chemistry and the design of products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and creation of hazardous materials. It focuses on how we can use the 12 principles of green chemistry to design safe and effective products. Learn about biomimicry, and how humans can use the natural world to gain inspiration when designing more environmentally safe products.

Please show up 10-mins before the tour starts to attend.

12:00 PM – 1:30 PM CST

LUNCH

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Kick off with a keynote presentation with MilliporeSigma's CTO, Karen Madden.

PRESENTER:

Karen Madden, Chief Technology Officer, MilliporeSigma, the U.S. and Canada Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

1:30 PM – 3:30 PM CST

Introduction of 2023 Startup Network Cohort

Join this fast-paced session to learn more from the newest members of the Change Chemistry Startup Network. The startups are traveling from across the United States, Canada, Finland, and New Zealand for the opportunity to contribute to Change Chemistry’s mission to drive large scale adoption of safer, more sustainable, high performing chemical solutions. Innovations include renewable biopolymers, catalysts, biosurfactants, water treatment technologies, SaaS tools for chemical hazard evaluation, and more, with targeted markets in chemical manufacturing, personal care and cosmetics, durable consumer products, agricultural products, and, truly, any sector managing hazardous chemicals. Please join us to give a warm welcome to these startups and begin exploring if they have just the solution you may need. 

• Arrakis Materials
• Axine Water Technologies
• Ayas Renewables
• Boreal Bioproducts
• Cascade Biocatalysts
• FiberX
• Hazard Evaluations Ltd (HazEL)
• Ruby Bio
  

3:30 PM – 4:00 PM CST

NETWORKING BREAK

4:00 PM – 5:30 PM CST

Reverse Pitch Session

Product-market fit is an essential component to indicate an innovation’s likelihood of commercial success. Whether a large multi-national corporation or a startup, we all share the need to understand the potential customers’ needs. This session provides the opportunity for established companies to contribute their perspective on innovation needs to advance their corporate goals. Through panel discussion and audience engagement, we will seek to clarify the market and expectations for safer and more sustainable solutions.

MODERATOR: Patrick Foley, President, P2 Science

PRESENTERS:

• Ettigounder (Samy) Ponnusamy, Director & Fellow, Green Chemistry, MilliporeSigma
• Melissa Schisler, Global Director, Toxicology & Environmental Research & Consulting, Dow
• Edward Rakiewicz, Corporate Fellow, Corporate Science & Technology, PPG
• Todd Cline, Senior Director, Sustainability, Procter & Gamble
  
  

Closing Remarks

• Rui Resendes, Development Director, Change Chemistry

6:00 PM – 9:00 PM CST

WELCOME RECEPTION AT MILLIPORE SIGMA

Address: 2909 Laclede Ave, St. Louis, MO 63103

8:30 AM – 11:00 AM CST

REGISTRATION

8:30 AM – 9:00 AM CST

LIGHT BREAKFAST & REFRESHMENTS

9:00 AM – 9:05 AM CST

Opening Remarks

PRESENTER:
Joel Tickner, Executive Director, Change Chemistry

9:05 AM – 9:45 AM CST

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Join us for a conversation with Paul Anastas and John Warner, the 'fathers' of green chemistry, as they reflect on the growth of their efforts 25 years after the seminal work on green chemistry theory and practice. 

MODERATOR: Joel Tickner, Executive Director, Change Chemistry

PRESENTERS:

Paul Anastas, Teresa and H. John Heinz III Professor in the Practice of Chemistry for the Environment, Yale School of the Environment

John Warner, President and CEO, Technology Greenhouse, LLC and Distinguished Professor of Green Chemistry, Monash University

9:45 AM – 11:15 AM CST

SESSION 1: Opportunities to Scale Safe and Sustainable Solvents

Solvents are widely used across sectors in both manufacturing processes and products. Many traditional solvents are under increasing regulatory and market scrutiny for their toxicity or VOC content. In some sectors, there is also a push towards bio-based feedstocks for solvent production. Despite more than 30 years of work on safer solvents and the establishment of a number of databases and solvent selection tools for, in many sectors and applications safer solutions have not taken off in the marketplace. This panel will explore what it will take to “tip the scales” towards scale and adoption safer and more sustainable solvents and what research, collaborations, incentives, and policies are needed to support this transition.

MODERATOR:

Jeffrey Whitford, Vice President, Sustainability & Social Business Innovation, MilliporeSigma, the U.S. and Canada Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany 

PRESENTERS:

Anna Zhenova, Founder & CEO, Green Rose Chemistry

Jane Murray, Global Head of Green Chemistry, MilliporeSigma 

Alessandro Napoli, Vice President of Product Development, CIRCA 

Art Fong, Smarter Chemistry Lead, Apple 

11:15 AM – 11:30 AM CST

NETWORKING BREAK

11:30 AM – 1:00 PM CST

SESSION 2 (BREAKOUT DISCUSSION): Advancing Environmental Justice through Sustainable Chemistry: Establishing Promising Practices

There is evidence that chemical exposures throughout product lifecycles disproportionately impact people of color and lower income communities. These same communities are often not able to access or benefit from the products of sustainable chemistry. This discussion session will explore where companies across the value chain can start as well as promising practices for integration of environmental justice considerations into chemical and product design, manufacturing, selection, and procurement decisions.

MODERATOR:

Sally Edwards, Director, Retailer Leadership Council, Change Chemistry

PRESENTERS:

Karen Chu, Special Advisor and Environmental Fellow, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Kayla Williams, Diversity Equity & Inclusion Lead, Clean Production Action

Tom Richardson, Chief Commercial Officer, Solugen

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM CST

LUNCH

2:00 PM – 3:30 PM CST

SESSION 3: Innovating to Solve the Plastics Problem: What’s working and how can we build on and scale it?

Recent expert reports and the INC2 talks Global Plastics Treaty highlighted the need to rapidly address the impacts of the plastics lifecycle on human and ecosystem health. And the "2023 White House Bold Goals for the Bioeconomy" report sets a goal of 90% of recyclable-by-design polymers, via sustainable and cost-effective biomanufacturing pathways within 20 years. How will we achieve the goal of scaling safer, more sustainable and circular plastics when these only represent a small percentage of plastics on the market today? Addressing this will require thoughtful consideration of feedstocks, additives, recycling, and end of life infrastructure. This panel will explore the research, investment, incentives, and system coordination needs to drive growth in sustainable plastics. 

MODERATOR:

Andy Shafer, Strategist, Business and Brand Builder, Shafers Innovations and Business Building Service (SIBBS)

PRESENTERS:

Meg Sobkowicz Kline, Professor of Plastics Engineering, UMass Lowell

Michael Delee, Product Stewardship Director, Plastics and Specialty Plastics, Dow

Ryan Smith, Co-Founder & CTO, Origin Materials

Natalie Stirling-Sanders, Chief Advisor for Americas, Alliance to End Plastic Waste 

3:30 PM – 4:00 PM CST

NETWORKING BREAK

4:00 PM – 5:30 PM CST

SESSION 4: Tracking Progress in Advancing Sustainable Chemistry – Are we getting there?

In 2015, the Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3) published its "Agenda to Mainstream Green Chemistry" that outlined a series of actions to advance education, policy, and market action around green and sustainable chemistry. How have we done since then in advancing growth in the field and how well coordinated are efforts to date? This panel will both explore progress in advancing sustainable chemistry as well as how we can better coordinate efforts and measure progress and inspire actions that accelerate growth in the future.  

MODERATOR:

Asli Tamer Vestlund, European Program Lead, Change Chemistry

PRESENTERS:

Amy Cannon, Executive Director and Co-Founder, Beyond Benign

Adelina Voutchkova, Director of Sustainable Development,  American Chemical Society

Joel Tickner, Executive Director, Change Chemistry

6:00 PM – 9:00 PM CST

DINNER RECEPTION AT ST. LOUIS UNION STATION HOTEL

Address: 1820 Market St, St. Louis, MO 63103

Function Room: Midway 5

Announcing Change Chemistry Member Awards

6:30 AM CST

JOG WITH JOEL

Join Joel Tickner, Executive Director of Change Chemistry, for a morning jog (5K) through parts of St. Louis. Please meet in the hotel lobby by 6:20 AM.

8:30 AM – 9:00 AM CST

LIGHT BREAKFAST & REFRESHMENTS

9:00 AM – 9:30 AM CST

KEYNOTE ADDRESS 

MODERATOR: Joel Tickner, Executive Director, Change Chemistry

PRESENTER:

B Gail McLean, Division Director (Acting) Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences Division, Department of Energy (DOE)

9:30 AM – 11:00 AM CST

SESSION 5: Policies and Incentives to Drive the Transition to Sustainable Chemistry

While there are increasing policy pressures at the state, federal, and international levels to substitute chemicals of concern in processes and products, less attention has been paid to policies and incentives designed to grow the supply and adoption of safer, more sustainable chemistries. This session will explore evolving chemicals and parallel policies (such as carbon neutrality and bioeconomy) at the state, federal, and European levels and their potential impacts on supporting the transition to sustainable chemistry as well as what changes would help them achieve maximum benefit in supporting development, adoption and scale.

MODERATOR:

Joel Tickner, Executive Director, Change Chemistry

PRESENTERS:

Kay Williams, Joint Head of International Chemicals, Pesticides and Hazardous Waste Hub, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)

Kristin Schreiber, Director, European Commission, DG Grow, Chemicals, Health, Retail and Agrifood

Ben Dunham, Principal Attorney, Dunham Law & Policy PLLC

Saskia van Bergen, Safer Chemist Lead, Washington State Department of Ecology

11:00 AM – 11:30 AM CST

NETWORKING BREAK

11:30 AM – 1:00 PM CST

SESSION 6 (BREAKOUT DISCUSSION): Developing a Holistic Framework for Safe and Sustainable Chemical Design and Selection

Decisions regarding chemical and product design and selection are driven by an increasing number of sustainability attributes including worker and user safety, climate, biodiversity and social impacts.  While there is increasing alignment in defining a “safer” chemical, there is less consistency in what and how other sustainability attributes are measured across sectors or how trade-offs are compared.  The Change Chemistry Retailer Leadership Council has developed a draft framework for a more holistic product assessment process entitled Holistic Product Considerations for Alternatives Assessment, intended to be used by retail and brand managers. Version 1 of this framework will be shared with Change Chemistry members to engage in a discussion about useful metrics and tools. Change Chemistry members will share examples of how they are using this framework or other approaches to evaluate a range of sustainability attributes.  

MODERATOR:

Jenny MacKellar, Program Director, Change Chemistry

PRESENTERS:

Sally Edwards, Director, Retailer Leadership Council, Change Chemistry

Aude Bechu, Chemist & Post Doc Research Associate, UMass Lowell

Wibke Lölsberg, Corporate Sustainability Strategy, BASF

Sascha Bloemhoff, Marketing Director Niaga®, Covestro

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM CST

LUNCH

2:00 PM – 3:30 PM CST

SESSION 7: Growing Sustainable Chemistry Transition Finance

The Finance community has focused significant attention on investments to achieve climate neutrality.  While the investment community is increasingly understanding the reputational, regulatory, and litigation risks associated with chemical pollution, it has not yet espoused a coordinated approach to financing chemical solutions.  In June 2023, the Sustainable Chemistry Catalyst at UMass Lowell and Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN) published the "Strategic approach to transition finance for sustainable chemicals and materials" that outlines research, engagement, and coordination needs to grow investment from early stage through facility construction. This panel will explore needed steps in advancing patient capital along the investment continuum for sustainable chemistry that can more effectively grow the next generation of safer, more sustainable chemicals and materials.

MODERATOR:
Rui Resendes, Director of Development, Change Chemistry

PRESENTERS:

Ann Lee-Jeffs, Senior Director, Corporate Sustainability, Modern Meadow

Caroline Boden, Director of Shareholder Advocacy, Mercy Investments

John May, Managing Director, Hamilton Clark Sustainable Capital, Inc. 

Laura Hoch, Senior Material Innovation Engineer, Patagonia, Inc.

3:30 PM – 4:00 PM CST

Closing Remarks

PRESENTER:

Joel Tickner, Executive Director, Change Chemistry