ChemFORWARD Expands SAFER™ Verified Program: Opportunity for Chemical Suppliers to Showcase Safer Ingredients
DURHAM, NC, June 12, 2025 – ChemFORWARD, a science-based nonprofit advancing safer chemistry, today announced the expansion of its SAFER™ trade name ingredient registry. This expansion follows the success of its initial pilot program and incorporates industry-specific criteria, ensuring that safer alternative chemicals are identified in alignment with the unique safety needs of sectors such as beauty, electronics manufacturing, apparel, and more.
The SAFER Verified program provides chemical suppliers a powerful opportunity to strengthen trust through rigorous third-party disclosure and assessment against both human and environmental impacts. The SAFER label is a tangible asset for sales communication that strengthens trust with customers and adds additional value for customers seeking to design safe and sustainable consumer goods.
With updated guidance in place that was shaped by insights from the pilot, the SAFER program is poised to identify and promote a wider range of safer chemical alternatives across industries. "After a successful pilot program, we are excited to expand the SAFER™ program, allowing designers, formulators, and manufacturers to ensure the ingredients they select support safe and sustainable design,” stated Chris Bartlett, Ph.D., Lead Toxicologist and SAFER program lead at ChemFORWARD.
The SAFER™ Verified Process
Leveraging the comprehensive Chemical Hazard Data Trust managed by ChemFORWARD to reduce cost and time for review, the program identifies, verifies, and promotes commercially available safer trade name chemical alternatives that meet the program’s stringent disclosure and safety standards.
Requirements include:
Disclosure of all intentionally added constituents and any residuals or impurities present at or above 100 ppm.
Assessment and screening of each disclosed ingredient against the hazard data in the Chemical Hazard Data Trust with all inputs receiving hazard bands of low concern.
Review against additional safety requirements based on intended use (e.g., beauty and personal care applications and worker exposure in electronics manufacturing).
How SAFER™ Verified Benefits Chemical Suppliers:
Promote Verified Safer Alternative. Market products as safer options backed by credible hazard information curated and verified by a trusted third party.
Differentiate Products. Highlight formulations based on purity and the absence of harmful additives since SAFER™ reviews every CAS-level substance within a trade name product.
Reduce Verification Costs. Leverage existing Chemical Hazard Assessments (CHAs) in the ChemFORWARD platform to lower the cost and effort for ingredient manufacturers.
Gain Market Visibility. Strengthen your marketing by using the SAFERTM badge as well as having all SAFER™ products featured on the ChemFORWARD website and the web-based Alternatives Finder platform. Furthermore, ChemFORWARD will actively promote these listings and distribute them to online marketplaces.
Rachel Simon, Safer Chemistry Collaboratives Lead at ChemFORWARD, emphasized the impact on supply chain transformation."With SAFER™ Verified trade name products, designers, formulators, and manufacturers can move faster to identify and incorporate safer solutions from the beginning, helping drive systemic change across the global supply chain.”
The expansion of the SAFER™ Verified program aims to create a "win/win/win" for the supply chain by empowering chemical suppliers to showcase their commitment to safer chemistry, enabling formulators to easily find and use these ingredients, and assisting organizations in meeting their safer alternative procurement goals.
For suppliers interested in promoting material disclosure and safer chemistry or learning more about our SAFER program, please visit www.chemforward.org/safer and contact info@chemforward.org.
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ChemFORWARD is a science-based non-profit organization that manages the Chemical Hazard Data Trust. Its mission is to create broad access to chemical hazard data and illuminate safer alternatives, to end toxic chemical exposure, and enable safe and sustainable commerce.
