CEFIC has published a white paper presenting “a roadmap to unleash the full potential of innovation in the chemical industry”. The association said that  harnessing this potential will require making the innovation framework smarter, using high-quality science, technological innovation and collaborative policies that prioritise openness and pragmatic outcomes while embracing innovative approaches”.

The white paper lists six pre-conditions that must be in place to fully reap the benefits of a smart innovation policy framework:

A jury has ordered Bayer subsidiary Monsanto to pay $73 million in compensatory damages and $784 million in punitive damages to seven former students and two parent volunteers at Sky Valley Education Centre in Monroe, Washington State, for health damage caused by polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) it supplied.

Neste has completed a strategic study it launched in September 2022 and is now beginning a gradual transformation of its crude oil refinery in Porvoo, Finland, into a “renewable and circular solutions refining hub”. This will take place in phases and is expected to be complete in the mid-2030s at a cost of around €2.5 billion.

Following a public consultation, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is beginning a 12-month process to prioritise five additional toxic chemicals for risk evaluation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Should they be designated as high priority substances, as expected, risk evaluations will then begin.

Checks on various consumer products in 26 European Economic Area (EEA) countries found that 18% of them contained excessive levels of hazardous chemicals, ECHA has revealed. This was carried out in late 2022 as an EU-wide enforcement project related to the ECHA Enforcement Forum.

Spain’s Cepsa Chemicals has just launched a new blockchain-based system that will enable it to track the palm and coconut oil it uses as raw material all to the way to use in its production of biodegradable surfactants. The company had launched NextLAB, the world's first sustainable linear alkylbenzene (LAB), earlier this year.

Chris van den Belt, product management team leader at IFS Ultimo, shows how health, safety and environmental management can be integrated into an EAM system

The management of tasks related to health protection, occupational safety and environmental management (USE) is extremely important but also enormously complex.