Sustainable Development and Chemistry

Abstract

AbstractThe United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, provided the fundamental principles (Rio Declaration) and the program of action (Agenda 21) for achieving sustainable development. Sustainable chemistry is understood as the contribution of chemistry to the implementation of the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21.The conservation and management of resources for development are the main focus of interest, where chemistry will have to make a considerable contribution by more efficient and environmentally more benign chemical processes by the following: providing chemical products that are environmentally more benign and that allow us to enhance significantly the efficiency of production processes in other industrial areas combined with minor environmental impact and allowing the consumer to use resources more effectively.Innovations are investigated exemplarily for a sustainable development with regard to their ecological, economical, and social dimensions from an integrated and interdisciplinary perspective. Since base chemicals are produced in large quantities and important product lines are synthesized from them, their resource‐saving production is especially important for a sustainable development. In the long run, renewable resources that are catalytically processed could replace fossil raw materials. Separation methods existing today must be improved considerably to lower material and energy consumption. Chemistry might become the pioneer of an innovative energy technique. The design of chemical products should make possible a sustainable processing and recycling and should prevent their bioaccumulation. Methods and criteria to assess their contribution to a sustainable development are necessary. The time taken to introduce the new more sustainable processes and products has to be diminished by linking their development with operational innovation management and with efficient environmental–political control procedures.