What Corporate Sustainability Is Missing

In a welcome development for the planet, the sustainability movement has surged and shifted the corporate landscape. In 2023, 72% of S&P 500 companies integrated sustainability metrics into executive compensation, signaling a growing awareness of the need to consider environmental impacts alongside financial performance.

For many companies, sustainability is synonymous with carbon reduction. Success is typically measured in terms of metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted, kilowatt-hours of energy used, and percentage of energy consumed from renewable sources. But with a narrow focus on reducing their carbon footprint, many companies are overlooking their chemical footprint.

Throughout their operations and supply chains, companies utilize a vast array of chemicals, some with a potential for adverse environmental and human health impacts. These include persistent pollutants, endocrine disruptors, and heavy metals. These chemicals contaminate our air, water, and soil, posing long-term risks to ecosystems and human health. If companies ignore their use and the proper management of chemicals of concern, they are undercutting their environmental stewardship.

The Climate-Chemical Connection

As the world transitions to clean energy, fossil fuel companies are increasingly focusing on petrochemical production. Petrochemicals serve as the building blocks for a vast array of products, including plastics, synthetic fabrics, paints, insulation, fertilizers, and pharmaceuticals. This strategic shift allows the industry to continue utilizing oil and gas and extending the life of fossil fuel infrastructure. This pivot is undermining climate progress and creating harmful pollution. Product manufacturers and retailers can help blunt the harms by restricting their use of problematic or unnecessary petrochemicals.

Business Benefits of Safer Chemistry

Choosing healthier materials not only protects the environment, customers, and employees, it’s also good for business. For example, reducing the use of harmful chemicals can lower financial and reputational risks for companies. Addressing harmful chemicals can also help companies stay ahead of new regulations and avoid potential fines or penalties. Most importantly, the public is becoming aware of the environmental and health impacts of the products they buy. They increasingly prefer companies that prioritize human and environmental health. Demonstrating commitment to avoiding the use of chemicals of concern can help companies differentiate themselves among their employees and customers from their competition.

Getting Started: The Six Classes Approach

Instead of addressing thousands of chemicals in operations and supply chains one-by-one, companies can apply the Six Classes approach. It is easier and more effective to stop using whole classes of chemicals of concern at once, which are large groupings determined by similarities in chemical structure (“chemical cousins”) and function. At the Green Science Policy Institute, we recommend prioritizing six classes of chemicals that are commonly used, linked to health harm, and migrate out of products into air and dust (and eventually our bodies). These are PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) , antimicrobials, flame retardants, bisphenols and phthalates, some solvents, and certain metals.

When manufacturing, designing, or purchasing, companies should consider whether products or materials contain a chemical from the Six Classes. If so, they should ask three questions:

1. Is it necessary? Some chemicals of concern are unnecessary. Performance can often be achieved without using harmful chemicals. For example, by stopping fires with smolder-resistant fabrics, we can prevent the need for flame retardants in furniture foam.
2. Is the function worth it? PFAS can make a carpet stain resistant, but could cause long-term health harms to a crawling baby. Does the function merit the risk?
3. Are there safer alternatives? Harmful chemicals can often be replaced by alternative materials or designs. For instance, glass or stainless steel water bottles can be a better choice than plastics, which can contain bisphenols and phthalates.

Companies Like IKEA Are Leading the Way

Some innovative businesses such as IKEA, Kaiser Permanente, Levi Strauss and Co., and Crate & Barrel have used the Six Classes approach to phase out entire classes of chemicals of concern. Popular footwear company KEEN has been applying the approach for years. After learning their shoes had PFAS, the company audited their supply chain, identifying PFAS in 101 places, from shoelaces to packing receipts. Strikingly, they found that 75% of these uses were unnecessary and didn’t require any replacement chemicals. For the other uses, with time and effort, they found effective alternatives. They share their strategy to eliminate the entire class of PFAS in their shoes in the Keen Green Paper.

By expanding their focus to include the reduction of whole classes of harmful chemicals alongside carbon emissions, corporate sustainability programs can increase worker and consumer safety, and realize financial and business benefits.