The next generation of scientists understands the importance of green and sustainable chemistry, and Union College is among the innovative higher education institutions integrating these principles into its students’ education. Union College, located in Schenectady, New York, is both an American Chemical Society (ACS)-approved program and a Green Chemistry Commitment (GCC) signer, demonstrating its commitment to green chemistry education and its understanding that innovation cannot come without broader considerations for the environment and human health. With the resources and community of both the ACS and GCC, Union College is fostering a new generation of chemists who see the societal impacts of their work beyond the lab. 

In the following conversation, Beyond Benign’s Higher Education Program Manager Juliana Vidal discusses green chemistry’s role in education with Union College Chemistry Professor and ACS President Mary Carroll and Union College Chemistry Department Chair and Associate Professor Laura MacManus-Spencer. 

Juliana Vidal: Can you share a bit about your chemistry background and how it led to the work you’re doing today? When did you learn about green chemistry? How is green chemistry a part of the work you do?

Mary Carroll: I’m an analytical chemist by training and during my studies and early career, the work I was doing was related to measurements, such as sensing, instrument development and molecular spectroscopy. These areas of work have some environmental aspects to them, but it wasn’t always the driving force. I really learned more about green chemistry specifically, as opposed to environmental aspects of chemistry, when I was serving on the ACS Society Committee on Education (SOCED), because we would get reports from the Green Chemistry Institute during some of our meetings. For the past 22 years, I’ve had a collaborative research group in aerogel materials with Ann Anderson, a mechanical engineering faculty member at Union College. We invented a process for making certain aerogels that result in substantially less waste. Some of our applications are using aerogels for sustainable building applications, such as in windows. I actually have a startup company working in that space. 

Laura MacManus-Spencer: I’ve been interested in the connections between chemistry and our environment since my undergraduate studies. Learning how a solid foundation in chemistry and chemical principles could lead to a better understanding of the world around me and humans’ interactions with it is what really got my attention. In my post-doctoral research, I worked on a project related to the principle of design for degradation. We studied per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that were so resistant to degradation and so extremely persistent in the environment. We investigated their chemical, physical, and biological properties with an eye toward the elements of their structures that might be modified to make them more degradable and benign in the environment. Now, as a faculty member at Union, I continue to do research with undergraduate students related to the applications of chemistry, specifically analytical chemistry, to environmental problems related to contaminants of emerging environmental concern. Our research is not focused on green chemistry, per se, but we do use the 12 Principles as guidelines. 

Juliana: Mary, how do you see the changes in the field of chemistry over the years? What does an organization such as the ACS do to stay on top of these changes, such as the inclusion of green chemistry in the ACS Guidelines for Bachelor’s Degree Programs?

Mary: I’m relatively senior in my career, and there have been big changes in chemistry over that time. There’s been a lot more intentionality, in terms of focus on how we are designing things. Whether we’re talking about molecules, models or devices, you never know what the unintended consequences are going to be. There are many positives to innovation, but I think there’s more intentionality in thinking about what some of the unforeseen things could be. Compared to when I was a student of chemistry, we certainly have a much more robust safety culture, which relates to some of the principles of green chemistry. The ACS has the advantage of having people involved with expertise in many different areas. For example, we have the division of environmental chemistry and committees related to different principles. It’s clear that we have to evolve over time, and that we have to take advantage of the expertise within our community and within adjacent communities, to really stay ahead of everything and keep moving forward.

The Green Chemistry Institute (GCI) has been within ACS for more than 20 years now, and so the green chemistry principles have been certainly spread about by ACS. There are industry round tables and pharmaceutical and other industries that are very involved with the GCI. As a member of the ACS board, I’m really excited by the ACS campaign for a sustainable future, which is a relatively new program that has grants, awards, academic industry partnerships and sustainability summits. The ACS Guidelines for Bachelor’s Degree Programs, which include green chemistry, are looked at by the Committee on Professional Training (CPT) every few years. The fact that the guidelines evolve over time is one sign that ACS really is trying to stay on top of changes and make sure we’re incorporating green chemistry into education at the university and college level. I see it as a very positive sign that green chemistry is explicitly included in the most recent guidelines.

Juliana: Laura, what can faculty and departments do to stay on top of these changes in the field of chemistry and shift with the times?

Laura: The intentional inclusion of green chemistry principles in college curricula is being addressed, as it should be, reflecting the changes in perspective that have happened over time and will continue to happen in the future. The shifting connotation of the phrase “better living through chemistry” represents the changing role of chemistry in our society over the decades. It’s evolved from its initial optimistic connotation, associated with the creation of an ever-increasing number of new products that make our lives easier, more comfortable and more convenient. Uttering that same phrase now has a certain irony, referring to the environmental and toxicological issues that have accompanied the growth and innovation.

So what can faculty and departments do? We can keep learning, keep communicating, keep going to conferences and sharing ideas and practices. We can keep adapting our research to meet the changing pressures on the environment and on society. And a big one: listen to our students. Because they come up with amazing, wonderful, insightful new ideas that I think often are less hindered by the ingrained conceptions and sometimes prejudices some of us have from the way things have always been done.

Juliana: What motivated the Chemistry Department to sign the Green Chemistry Commitment? 

Laura: In 2007, Union College signed on to the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, now called the Climate Leadership Commitments. That one step has had real change on our campus in the areas of sustainability and moving toward carbon neutrality. Our department’s goals in signing the GCC are: one, to acknowledge our current efforts to implement the green chemistry principles in our curriculum; two, to motivate us to do more; and three, to provide real accountability and a framework to do so. 

Mary: I can just add that Laura, as an environmental analytical chemist and a new chair, is in a position to bring this to the deans and say it aligns with our institutional and departmental values. Frankly, we’re doing it anyway, but could we do it more intentionally? 

Juliana: How will being part of the Green Chemistry Commitment help your department integrate the green chemistry and sustainability principles required by the new ACS Guidelines for Bachelor’s Degree Programs and stay at the forefront of the green chemistry movement?

Laura: I think signing the GCC will provide our department with really important tools and resources as we continue our efforts to at least meet the normal expectations and, ideally, the markers of excellence, in this area over time. I think the green chemistry learning modules, case studies, lab exercises and online forums, and being a part of the green chemistry community will make it easier to share ideas, best practices and lessons learned with other educators and students. There are ways to incorporate some or all of the green chemistry principles in really any subdiscipline in chemistry, and I think being a part of a community of people with the common goal of doing so will help us to think creatively about how to do that.

Mary: I’m going to come back to the word intentional again. There are things we’ve been doing, but having the commitment and the access to the community that Laura mentioned will have us talking more about it. We had a department discussion about the new guidelines, and around the room, there were people doing green chemistry in ways I wasn’t aware of. Being part of the GCC is helping us with our internal communication as well as communication with the broader chemistry community.

Juliana: What do you see as the most significant outcome of the Chemistry Department being both ACS-certified and a Green Chemistry Commitment signer?

Laura: The most significant product of our department is our students, so the most significant outcomes relate to them. Students graduating from college with an ACS-approved degree are really proud of their achievement. They know that it represents an intentionality on the part of the faculty to provide a program that meets and often exceeds the standards set by the American Chemical Society, which is the world’s largest scientific society. They also know that they’re part of this community, which offers everything from disseminating cutting-edge research, access to online tools, networking opportunities, funding outreach opportunities, and even personal benefits such as life insurance. Similarly, I hope that students graduating from Union will proudly acknowledge that their Alma Mater is a signatory of the GCC and will carry that with them and take with them a mindset of studying and practicing chemistry in the context of society’s great challenges. We’re thinking about that a lot on our campus right now, with environmental sustainability being just one of those great challenges.

Mary: As part of our general education program, students have to take courses in a couple of different fields that touch on global challenges. I think today’s college students are keenly aware of some of the major challenges existing globally. They’re very interested in being involved in work and projects that are meaningful and not doing harm. We’re also very proud to have an ACS-approved program. We are a completely undergraduate institution and have a very lab-intensive program. We want to think about how we do things in the lab and the best ways to do lab work. We’re training them to go out into their careers, which for many of them are going to be related very directly to chemistry or biochemistry. To the extent that we can have them thinking about these issues now, that’s going to really pay off in the future.

Juliana: Have you seen green chemistry inspire students at Union College? 

Laura: Certainly I’ve seen the aspects of green chemistry and sustainability in the sciences inspire many students at Union College. From more traditional green chemistry aspects, such as working with synthetic organic chemists to find ways to run their reactions more environmentally friendly, to using smaller volumes of things. Whether working in the lab or with faculty outside the chemistry department, such as in engineering departments, they’re inspired to see the research they do can lead to more efficient and less environmentally harmful ways of doing things. For example, one student working in the aerogel lab was a double major in chemistry and environmental science. Though she did not have to, she wanted to tie everything together in her senior theses. She did a really interesting life cycle analysis of the use of aerogel materials for insulation in clothing, as opposed to, say, recycled polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, bottles. I could see the spark because she really could see the applications of what she was learning at Union College and how she might take that into the future. 

Mary: I think educators as a whole within chemistry haven’t historically been focused on a systems-thinking approach. When you deal with things in very discrete segments, you sometimes don’t get the whole picture. A life cycle analysis by its nature can be hard to define and interpret, but just by going through the exercise, you’re thinking about the whole process. That process thinking, which I think is pretty common in engineering education, is something that green chemistry is helping bring more into chemistry education.

Juliana: What is your hope for the future of green chemistry education at Union College and beyond?

Mary: I think to continue to prepare students to be thoughtful contributors to the overall scientific enterprise. I think that’s what we hope to do as educators is to teach people how to learn. A real strength of the green chemistry principles and community is this systems-thinking and the sharing of resources. But what we really want to do is prepare students, and we want to prepare them not just for the first thing they do, but to prepare them to be lifelong learners and lifelong contributors in a very positive way.

Laura: I would like to see green chemistry and sustainability initiatives get to the point of being so ingrained in our curriculum that it’s just not questioned anymore. We expect someone graduating with a degree in chemistry to know what a Diels–Alder reaction is. We expect them to know what chromatography is. We expect them to know something about proteins and their interaction with small molecules in the body. I would add green chemistry in there, that we just expect students to keep these green chemistry principles in mind at every single one of those steps and every course they take — and then take that beyond Union College’s walls. I also always tell students I want them to see chemistry all around them. My personal area of interest is personal care products, and I want them to walk into a Target and not just grab the first product off the shelf, but actually take a look and see what’s in it. Everything around us is chemicals. I want them to make informed decisions, both with their dollars at the store, but also with any future research they do. I want green chemistry to be an unquestioned part of our curriculum, and for students to continue to learn to see chemistry in a way that benefits society. That comes back to that phrase, “better living through chemistry,” and what that means to the next generation.

How to get involved:

• National Chemistry Week (#ACS_NCW) is celebrated this year during the week of October 20-26, with the theme “Picture Perfect Chemistry.” Check out what the American Chemical Society and the Green Chemistry Institute have planned and how you can get involved. 
• Interested in learning more about the GCC? Book a time with Juliana Vidal to talk about bringing the GCC to your institution.