ChemFORWARD to Support Manufacturers’ Compliance with San Francisco Safe Chemistry Policy
SF Environment has expanded the flexibility and usefulness of its pragmatic policy governing flame retardant chemicals. The agency will now accept ChemFORWARD methodology alongside GreenScreen scores to provide transparency around chemicals.
Nike Sponsored Portfolio Offers Alternatives to DMF, Facilitating Safer Textile Production
ChemFORWARD is pleased to announce the launch of a portfolio of safer alternatives to dimethylformamide. Clothing and shoe manufacturers including Nike have been eager for a less toxic replacement to the inexpensive, abundant and effective chemical, which has been used for decades to produce synthetic leather. ChemFORWARD has assembled complete chemical hazard assessments for 10 solvents that can be used instead of DMF.
Apple and ChemFORWARD Collaboration Offers Affordable, Verified Data on Safer Cleaners to Protect Worker Health
ChemFORWARD and Apple are collaborating to develop criteria for cleaning products based on the United Nations’ Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals and leverage our existing platform to support the sharing of high-quality, actionable chemical hazard data via our globally harmonized repository.
ChemFORWARD and GreenScreen Offer Aligned Outputs for Hazard Data: ToxServices
ChemFORWARD’s method of assessing chemical hazards and safer alternatives and GreenScreen for Safer Chemicals’ framework offer highly aligned and equivalent outputs. That’s according to a detailed comparison of results from applying the two methods that ToxServices’ Jennifer Tanir presented at the 2021 Society of Toxicology’s Annual Meeting last month.
In Conversation with Boma-Brown West: Pursuing a Unified Definition of Clean Beauty
“Clean” has grown to dominate the growth in the beauty sector, with prestige beauty brands claiming to be clean surging 39 percent in 2019 and doubling their share of high-end skincare sales in the last four years.
ChemFORWARD Executive Director Stacy Glass sat down to talk with Boma Brown-West, director of consumer health at Environmental Defense Fund. Brown-West is an engineer who works at the intersection of science, policy and corporate leadership to drive safer products in the retail marketplace. Glass leads a nongovernmental organization working to provide a shared database of chemical hazards and safer alternatives, allowing companies to use better information to make safer products.
EDF’s Clean Beauty Roadmap Offers Long-Needed Guide to Credible Claims of Safe Products
This roadmap is a clear framework for companies making clean beauty claims to restore and build confidence in their products. It equips them to move beyond the practice of claiming to be “free of” a group of hazards or restricted substances -- no matter how extensive -- and instead offer the credible assurance that ingredients have been thoroughly and credibly assessed and found to be free of hazards.
ChemFORWARD Applauds Apple, Target, and Sephora for Safe-Chemistry Leadership
ChemFORWARD applauds Toxic Free Future’s fifth Retailer Report Card, highlighting the great work by leaders in safer chemistry including the report card’s two A+ grades, earned by ChemFORWARD Co-design Partners Apple Inc., and Target Corp., along with Sephora, with an A grade representing the list’s biggest improvement over time.
Apple Joins ChemFORWARD as Co-Design Partner, Boosting Sustainable Tech Innovation
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.
ChemFORWARD and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition Launch the Safe + Circular Materials Collaborative
“This partnership with the Sustainable Packaging Coalition will not only help support companies seeking the material building blocks that will make packaging safe for humans and the environment across the product life cycle; it will seek to identify and activate the supply chain drivers to create lasting systems change,” said ChemFORWARD Executive Director Stacy Glass.
Credo Beauty Joins ChemFORWARD as Codesign Partner, Accelerating Supply Chain Transformation
“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.”
Now You Can Future Proof Your Beauty and Personal Care Products with Clean Chemistry
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.
Chris Bartlett Joins ChemFORWARD as Staff Toxicologist, Supporting Scientific and Data Verification Capabilities
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.
2020 Messages we Loved and Voices we Want to Amplify
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.
The Science of Clean Beauty - Expert Video Collection
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.
ChemFORWARD, Collaboration and Safer Chemistry Featured in GreenBiz
"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.
ChemFORWARD and ChemSec Marketplace Collaborate to Boost Availability of Safer Alternatives
“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.
Kimberly Shenk Joins ChemForward Advisory Board, Bringing Data Science and Consumer Products Expertise
“Kimberly’s experience in growing companies that blend beauty products, data science, and expertise in working with complex chemical supply chains will provide unrivaled benefit to our work to build and curate a transparent, highest quality collection of safer chemical alternatives, clearing the way for safer products for everyone,” said Stacy Glass, executive director of ChemFORWARD.
ChemFORWARD Publishes Safer Alternatives to Beauty and Personal Care Chemicals of Concern
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 JOINS CHEMFORWARD AS CODESIGN PARTNER, STRENGTHENING LEADERSHIP IN SAFER CHEMISTRY FOR ELECTRONICS
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.
BASF PRODUCTS ADDED TO CHEMFORWARD PORTFOLIO, INCREASING ACCESS TO SAFER CHEMICALS
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.