Chemistry plays a critical role in the design of products, resources and processes that pave the way for a sustainable future. Within this context, it is important to provide a clear understanding of what a green product or process is, beyond label information.

Green product selection often entails making trade-offs between environmental impacts. This workshop will help demystify green products and arm attendees with the knowledge to make an informed sustainable product selection.

The terms green and sustainable often refer to products, services or practices that allow for economic growth while conserving for future generations. A green product will hence be described as one that has less of an environmental impact or is less detrimental to human health than the traditional product equivalent. Participants will come to realize that all product development will have some impact on its respective environment. It all comes down to degrees of impact and trading off between impacts.

In order to understand the trade-offs, an overview of the following attributes that describe products will be provided. Green products are:

-        Energy efficient, durable, and often have low maintenance requirements

-        Free of ozone depleting chemicals, toxic compounds and don’t produce toxic by-products

-        Often made of recycled materials or content or from renewable and sustainable sources

-        Obtained from local manufacturers or resources

-        Biodegradable or easily reused either in part or as a whole

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) will be introduced, an approach through which all the aspects of resource use and environmental releases associated with product development from cradle-to-cradle are to be considered. This includes the extraction of raw materials from the earth and the production and distribution of energy, through the use, and reuse, and final disposal of a product.

A final interactive activity will shed the light on chemophobia – the fear of chemicals. This activity aims at clearing the growing misconception where the public tends to be suspicious and critical of the presence of any man- made (synthetic) chemicals in products that they make use of.