The Cupertino, California-based technology giant is one of the world’s most innovative in sustainability, leading initiatives on clean energy and no carbon footprint and working to source 100 percent recycled materials. The company’s Smarter Chemistry efforts include regulated substances specifications, toxicological assessments of materials selected for Apple products, and a protocol for prioritizing chemicals of concern in the electronics industry.

“Adding The Dirty List™ to our globally harmonized repository of safer alternatives makes it even easier for brands, formulators, and other decision-makers in beauty and personal care to eliminate chemicals of concern, avoid regrettable substitutions, and design safer from the beginning,” said Stacy Glass, ChemFORWARD’s executive director. “By strengthening our work with the partnership of a leader like Credo’s, we can make even more progress toward ending toxic chemical exposure and advancing health equity.”

ChemFORWARD’s team of seasoned safe-chemistry pioneers built this platform to offer an easy way to create safer beauty and personal care products which demonstrate leadership in this industry. The tool offers a simple, intuitive, and affordable route to eliminating chemicals of concern, avoiding regrettable substitutions, and designing safer from the beginning.

Bartlett has worked with ChemFORWARD as a consultant and verifier and will now add this leadership role to those duties. He will help ChemFORWARD advance the development and adoption of its platform as well as provide valuable judgment to ChemFORWARD’s unique verification and technical dispute resolution process, ensuring the highest quality data makes it onto the platform.

From plastic to paint, from the most personal look at chemicals and health to one woman’s efforts to protect a state’s children, 2020 was full of meaningful and admirable work in the realm of safer chemistry and ingredient transparency. Here is a small list of some of the work that impressed and inspired us from the past 12 months.

ChemFORWARD hosted a series of virtual coffee breaks featuring leaders from clean Beauty and Personal Care. These 30-minute sessions offered a targeted introduction to ideas you’ll want to explore further along with meaningful, provocative conversation.

"The work that ChemFORWARD is doing and proposes to do will provide important additional information to a community of organizations seeking real-world data to better understand the safety implications of their materials choices," said green chemistry trailblazer John C. Warner, a distinguished research fellow at synthetic biology startup Zymergen.

“We foresee the synergies of this partnership potently accelerating industry adoption of safer alternatives across multiple sectors,” said Stacy Glass, executive director of ChemFORWARD.

ChemFORWARD’s comprehensive assessments of chemical hazards and alternatives complements ChemSec Marketplace’s superlative cataloguing and display of available alternatives. This exciting partnership will connect Marketplace’s users to full chemical hazard assessments while also linking ChemFORWARD’s assessments to Marketplace entries.

ChemFORWARD worked with SEPHORA and other codesign partners to develop 11 portfolios of safer alternatives for preservatives, benzophenones, silicones, and ethanolamines. The collection represents the beginning of a comprehensive library of safer ingredients for beauty and personal care manufacturers.

HP will contribute its expertise to ChemFORWARD and other technology leaders in an electronics-industry initiative to create a collection of chemical hazard assessments. The work will produce and assemble comprehensive information on safer alternatives to toxic chemicals used in items such as computers, printers, and cell phones, and make the information accessible to product manufacturers throughout the supply chain.

As an Industry Manager for Industrial Petrochemicals at the world’s largest chemical company, BASF’s Patrick Harmon spends his time at the crux of safer chemistry -- making effective products that are also safer for human and environmental health. The business case is clear: BASF’s customers formulating and selling products made from the company’s chemicals are eager to verify claims of safer chemistry and help their customers make good decisions about what they are putting in the marketplace.

In this 20-minute presentation, Heine and Glass offer details about how a globally harmonized repository of trusted chemical hazard assessment information underpins the path to safer products. Watch the video here to learn about how ChemFORWARD is scaling chemical hazard information on safer alternatives.

Werner contributes rich experience with the technology industry, chemical hazard assessment and circular economy to ChemFORWARD’S mission of enabling a safe, circular and more equitable economy. Werner’s mission at Google is to eliminate toxic chemicals from consumer products and drive higher environmental performance and sustainability of product design. Previously at Google, he led the product sustainability, biocompatibility, and environmental compliance team for Google’s consumer hardware division.