ChemFORWARD Announces the "Safer Chemistry Profile" Standardizing Metrics and Reporting
Empowering companies to navigate the new world of chemical hazard transparency reporting.
DURHAM, NC — Following last week’s landmark launch of the Safer Chemistry Impact Metrics Framework by the Safer Chemistry Impact Fund, ChemFORWARD is proud to announce the next evolution of our portfolio assessment services: the Safer Chemistry Profile (SCP) (formerly known as the Ingredient Intelligence Report).
As the operationalized implementation of the SCI Metrics Framework, the SCP turns raw inventory and disclosure data into actionable strategic intelligence. This update represents a critical step forward in standardizing, codifying, and scaling the data-driven tools that organizations need to eliminate hazardous chemicals and confidently transition to verified safer alternatives.
The announcement highlights the following key developments in ChemFORWARD’s ongoing mission:
Rebranding to Scale: Standardizing Our Language and the "Doughnuts"
For the past three years, ChemFORWARD has worked with dozens of leading brands to map chemical inventories, flag chemicals of concern, and measure safer chemistry. Today, we are formalizing this body of work under the banner of Safer Chemistry Profiling, introducing the Safer Chemistry Product Profile, Safer Chemistry Company Profile, and Safer Chemistry Industry Profile to replace the former Ingredient Intelligence Reports.
The primary driver for this rebranding is a strategic shift to simplify and accelerate market adoption. As outlined by the Safer Chemistry Impact Fund, there is a critical need to align our industry language directly around the visual "doughnuts"—the standardized Hazard Band Profile doughnut graphs that have become a shorthand for hazard metrics. By renaming our services to "Safer Chemistry Profiles," we make it easier for brands, retailers, and suppliers to communicate their chemical footprint, benchmark progress, and share their data-driven stories with stakeholders in a highly recognizable, consistent format.
Full Alignment with the Safer Chemistry Impact Metrics Framework
The Safer Chemistry Impact Fund has published the Safer Chemistry Impact Metrics Framework—a first-of-its-kind, open-architecture universal blueprint that establishes a standardized measurement layer for chemical footprinting, analogous to greenhouse gas accounting protocols. The Safer Chemistry Profile (SCP) is the premier operationalized implementation of this framework.
The SCP translates raw inventory disclosures directly into the framework's core metrics, utilizing the Chemical Hazard Data Trust to establish a baseline and progress reporting against five key metrics:
% Disclosed: Establishes the foundation for measurement. This quantifies the percentage of ingredients with sufficient chemical identity information to enable identification and subsequent hazard characterization. Acknowledges the known unknowns and tracks the improvement of disclosure/transparency over time
% Characterized: The baseline of visibility. This quantifies the percentage of ingredients in a portfolio that have sufficient data to be assigned a hazard classification.
% Safer Chemistry (Hazard Bands A, B, and C): An objective and comparable measure of progress. Quantifying the proportion of the portfolio consisting of verified safer chemistry.
% Chemicals of Concern (Hazard Bands D and F): Identifying priorities for action. This quantifies the presence of substances with potential hazards that may hold current and future regulatory and/or reputational risk.
% Unknown/Unrated (Hazard Band ?): Quantifying the information gap. This metric ensures that a lack of data is never confused with safety. It serves as a targeted investment map, identifying priorities for investment in chemical hazard assessments (CHAs) to resolve hidden risks and uncover opportunities for value creation.
This alignment is built upon three years of rigorous, data-driven pilots managed by ChemFORWARD across complex global supply chains, including Beauty and Personal Care, Apparel and Footwear, Consumer Electronics, and the Built Environment. These pilots proved that when science-based hazard data is centralized and shared, chemical risks are highly manageable and systemic change is possible at scale.
Codification and Publicly Available Methodology Guidance
To support the credibility, transparency, and reproducibility that investors, regulators, and consumers demand, ChemFORWARD has codified the SCP methodology and published the Safer Chemistry Profile Methodology Documentation (Version 1.0), making our technical framework completely open and accessible.
The codified methodology guides organizations through the core stages of the SCP analytical engine:
Scope Definition: Mapping assessment boundaries, organizational boundaries, and supply chain representation.
Inventory Preparation & Mapping (Substance Resolution): Resolving reported ingredients and trade names to standardized CAS Registry Numbers (CAS RNs).
Hazard Characterization: Evaluating inherent chemical safety utilizing comprehensive, verified Chemical Hazard Assessments (CHAs) stored in ChemFORWARD's Data Trust.
Hazard Classification: Mapping endpoints to standardized, peer-reviewed A, B, C, D, F, and "Unknown" (?) Hazard Bands.
Metric Construction & Aggregation: Generating frequency-based metrics that preserve the visibility of data gaps without treating "the absence of data as safety."
Learn More: Register for Our Joint Informational Webinar on September 17
To help stakeholders navigate this new era of standardized chemical footprinting, ChemFORWARD and the Safer Chemistry Impact Fund will host a joint educational webinar on September 17, 2026.
This session will provide a technical deep dive into both the Safer Chemistry Impact Metrics Framework and the newly updated Safer Chemistry Profile. Participants will learn how to leverage these tools to track year-over-year progress, set measurable chemical management goals, and meet evolving global transparency policies such as the UN’s Global Framework on Chemicals.
What: Safer Chemistry Metrics & Profiles: Navigating the New Standard
When: September 17, 2026
Where: Virtual (Zoom)
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ChemFORWARD is a science-based, non-profit collaboration dedicated to ending toxic chemical exposure, illuminating safer alternatives, and creating a toxic-free economy. By centralizing verified chemical hazard data and making it actionable, ChemFORWARD provides the trusted "central source of truth" that empowers brands, retailers, and suppliers to make proactive, risk-aware decisions at scale. Learn more at www.chemforward.org.
