Identifying and transitioning to safer and more sustainable chemicals is a critical aspect of green and sustainable chemistry. Alternatives assessment provides a framework to evaluate, compare and select safer chemical alternatives. This approach is essential to ensuring the health and well-being of communities throughout the chemical life cycle. Alternatives assessment was born in the 1990s when scientists and regulators in Europe and in the United States began to advance substitution as an important risk management strategy for chemicals prioritized as being of concern to the health of workers, the public and/or the environment. Alternatives assessment has come of age and is an established approach to help identify, compare and select safer substitutes to chemicals of concern in specific applications or functions.  It is widely accepted as a best practice for avoiding regrettable substitutions when replacements for known toxic substances are subsequently determined to be toxic themselves. Yet with age comes new opportunities and needs. Alternatives assessment is entering into the next phase of its development given new challenges that require adaptations to existing assessment methodologies and practices. In addition, use of alternatives assessment in policy is at a stage where we can take stock and improve upon its inclusion in regulatory and non-regulatory strategies. We will also discuss industrial use of alternatives assessment to identify scalable safer alternatives to chemicals of concern. This special session will engage the green chemistry and engineering community on several alternatives assessment methods, practice and advances in policy application that are beginning to take shape. This session is designed to be discussion-oriented so that the alternatives assessment field can benefit from learnings and insights from professionals in attendance regarding the study of green chemistry, engineered nanomaterials, environmental justice, sustainability considerations, product certification and policy design. 

Attendees will learn: 

• How the field of alternatives assessment is evolving considering new developments in Safe and Sustainable by Design and emerging methods and practices for addressing environmental justice and nanomaterials 

• Benefits and challenges in the use product certifications as tools for vetting hazards in products 

• Emerging best practices in the design of policies to support informed substitution