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Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s (AASHE’s) Annual Conference Poster Session
October 29, 2019 @ 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Join Beyond Benign’s Director of the Green Chemistry Commitment program, Irv Levy at the AASHE conference where he will co-present with Green Chemistry Scientist, Saskia van Bergen, from the Washington State Department of Ecology a poster on “Breaking the Silos: Increasing the awareness and adoption of Green Chemistry across disciplines”.
Abstract :
Green chemistry is the design of chemical products and processes that use and generate less hazardous materials. In practice, green chemistry can result in tremendous benefits such as the reduction of hazardous waste, reduction in use of hazardous chemicals, reduction in purchasing costs, and increasing the energy efficiency of laboratory practices. The field of green chemistry has grown significantly over the past two decades and has remained somewhat separate from campus sustainability initiatives. In reality, the principles and practice of green chemistry can be applied across disciplines and solutions to sustainability challenges will ultimately require multidisciplinary approaches. This presentation will provide an overview of Green Chemistry and how it can be applied in disciplines and courses beyond the sciences, such as art, business, communications, economics, and more. Specific examples include how governmental programs such as the U.S. EPA’s Safer Choice, a certification used in Environmental Preferable Purchasing, can be used to showcase greener chemical products in courses (i.e., chemistry and communications), as well as in student club activities. Green chemistry applied to art courses will also be presented as a model for reducing impacts in courses and programs beyond the chemistry course and lab. The use of chemicals on campuses and in courses is not limited to chemistry courses and programs and even reaches us in our daily lives at home. Green chemistry can have significant benefits when applied across disciplines, helping to reduce impacts and hazards.
