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Sustainable Futures
More on Working
to Prevent Pollution
Sustainable Futures, a partnership among OPPT, the chemical industry, and other stakeholders, offers computerized chemical screening models that enable those developing chemicals to quickly and cost effectively screen them for hazards and/or risks early in the development process.
Because Sustainable Futures also enables comparing and contrasting hazard and risk profiles of chemicals and processes, participation in the program can allow companies to more quickly commercialize environmentally preferable new chemical products and identify safer alternatives for existing chemical products.
Training and follow-up assistance in the proper use of these screening models is offered now on a fee-for-service basis by Agency grantees that have worked closely with EPA on the Sustainable Futures Initiative.
Accomplishments
- Interest continues in Sustainable Futures with more than 80 people, including representatives of
30 chemical companies, taking training during 2007 in the use, interpretation and applicability of
Sustainable Futures chemical screening models.
Participants in the training sessions also included government scientists from Australia, Europe (Poland, Germany, Slovakia, and the Netherlands) and Japan, and scientists from several consulting firms.
- Approximately 11 percent of 2007 through June 2008 New Chemical pre-manufacture notifications were independently evaluated by submitters at the research and development stage using the Sustainable Futures tools.
- As of December 2007, five companies participating in the Sustainable Futures Initiative have graduated and become eligible to receive regulatory relief for prescreened low-hazard, low-risk New Chemical Notices.
- In 2007 a new Sustainable Futures Web site was posted at http://www.epa.gov/oppt/sf/, which has a straightforward front-page index with links to the SustainableFutures’ models, training materials, and more.
- Since the public release of the PBT Profiler in December 2002 through June 2008 stakeholders have conducted more than 160,000 independent PBT screening assessments, making OPPT's PBT Profiler one of the most widely used chemical screening tools. Collaborating with stakeholders, OPPT created the PBT Profiler, an online computer model that allows users to receive quantitative estimates of the environmental persistence (P), bioconcentration potential (B) and toxicity (T) of chemicals.
- The Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (SOCMA) sponsored a training session on the Sustainable Futures models in August 2007 and additional sessions are planned as called for in the 2006 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between EPA and SOCMA. The goal of the MOU is to provide training and technical assistance to companies and other stakeholders interested in learning how to use Sustainable Futures tools.
- Several consultants have expressed interest in becoming providers of fee-for-service training in the Sustainable Futures risk screening methods.